82, Complete

“You wanna play ball, bitch?”  Special agent Trent Murdock was holding a very large cast iron skillet like it was a baseball bat as he stood in the middle of an empty kitchen in a Mexican casino preparing to attack an oncoming bad guy.

Minutes earlier, the kitchen employees were scurrying about doing their normal mid day cooking duties.  Currently the fire alarm was going off and smoke from burning meat filled the room since all of the employees had abandoned what they were doing after a series of firecrackers that sounded like gun fire had scared everyone to run off.  

A tall, burly, very muscular Mexican thug was approaching Murdock menacingly.  “Batter up!” Murdock yelled at his oncoming adversary as he pulled the iron skillet back to take a swing.

Special agent Jack Miller would’ve normally not tolerated the dumb puns from his friend, but he was too afraid.  This Mexican thug was special like them.  He was no normal human, and Miller knew it was pointless to waste any time insulting Murdock.  Miller was putting all of his brain power towards figuring out how he and Murdock might take the thug out.

Team Whiskey had come to this casino to cause a very big scene.  The hope was to make a huge mess and ultimately anger a Mexican narcotics boss by the name of El Padre into making brash moves among his network to draw him out of hiding.  So far, the mission had been successful, even fun, until now.

The American agents had beaten up dozens of casino thugs and security guards at will, but now there were three super human thug freaks that had joined the mele and shit was about to get real.  Murdock was seconds away from facing one of them down.

Miller stood next to a prep table that had very sharp knives and chopped up lettuce that cooks had abandoned only minutes earlier.  “Hold him off, Murdock!” Miller yelled over the insanely loud fire alarm, but their conflict had already begun.

Murdock swung his iron skillet with all of his might as the thug lifted his left arm to parry the blow.  The skillet hit the thugs’ arm and bounced off as if Murdock had hit it against a trampoline.  The thug reached out with his right arm to grab Murdock by the chest and barely missed as the American tucked and lunged out of the way.  The thug followed Murdock clumsily allowing him to get to back upright.  Always looking for the one liner, Murdock hollered, “foul ball!”

This time Miller couldn’t help it.  “Jesus, Murdock!” he tried to yell, but his voice was drowned out by the noise coming from the fire alarm.

The action was too fast for Miller to shout out any well thought out insult.  The thug had picked up some stainless steel bowls that were full of various spices and salt rubs intended for meat.  His muscle fibers twitched faster than a machine as the bowls and their contents went blasting through the air at barely sub sonic speed.  They hit Murdock in the face and sent him sprawling backwards down to his back.

As Murdock was going down, Miller threw a large cutting knife at the thug.  He wasn’t bad at throwing knives, but it wasn’t his strong suit.  The knife handle hit the man in the shoulder and bounced off with a thud to the ground.  The thug didn’t even notice.  It was as if Miller wasn’t even there.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Murdock said as he struggled to get to his feet.  The thug lunged for Murdock but at the very last second, Murdock side stepped the very large man and barely avoided his huge arms.  He grabbed a cookie sheet that was on a prep table and brought it down hard on the man’s head, but it too bounced off as if the man’s skull was made of rubber.

Murdock grabbed other cooking utensils, including a blender and another stainless steel pot.  He threw the objects at the thug with all of his might but the thug swatted them all away effortlessly.  Murdock had rounded back to where he was originally standing and grabbed the cast iron skillet again.

In the meantime, Miller had grabbed another knife and threw it at the man’s leg.  This time the blade found purchase in the thugs thigh.  The bad man stopped for a second to look down and see the very large blade sticking out of his quadricep.  Blood was starting too ooze out of the new wound but the man made no visible sign of being in any pain or discomfort.  He reached down and pulled the knife out of his leg.  He didn’t examine it or even look around.  The thug threw it on the ground violently, again not acknowledging that there was anyone else in the room other than Murdock.

As Miller was grabbing another knife to throw, Murdock had stepped up to take another swing with the iron skillet.  “It’s a fast ball!” Murdock yelled over the loud alarm.  The thug again lifted his arm to parry the blow but this time the skillet made a huge cracking sound as it connected.  Bone shattered inside the man’s arm but the thug made no sign that he was in pain.  He dropped his broken arm and continued his steady pursuit of Murdock, reaching out with his non-broken arm to try and grab the American by the throat.

Another knife thrown by Miller found purchase in the thug’s calf muscle as Murdock reached into an aquarium full of live lobsters.  The thug looked down at his bleeding calf muscle to examine what had hit him, but he only looked curious, as if he were checking out something interesting on the floor.  He showed no sign of pain or injury. 

By instinct, Murdock plunged his hand into the water and picked up the largest lobster behind it’s two front arms.  In less than a second he shoved it at the thugs face.  The lobsters’ huge pincher grabbed the thug by the nose and clamped down tightly.  The thug looked back up cross eyed at the crustacean and tried to process what was going on.

Murdock had picked up the iron skillet again and yelled, “Switch hit, bitch!” to continue his shitty baseball jokes.  He swung it with his left hand as the thug reached out to grab the weapon.  His hand clamped down on the skillet and stopped it dead in its trajectory.  Murdock and the thug were frozen in a battle of control, neither man yielding to the other.

Miller reached into his pocket and pulled out a small contraption the size of a tv remote control as he yelled over the blaring fire alarm, “Murdock!  Let go!”  He lifted the contraption and pointed it at the thug as Murdock processed the instruction.

Murdock let go of the skillet and the thug pulled it back as Miller pushed the button on his gizmo.  A microwave electric shock emanated from the unit and electrified the iron skillet, turning it into a high voltage live wire.  The thug looked ridiculous as he shook violently from the electric current flowing through his body while a lobster clung to his nose.

Miller kept the button pushed down on his weapon as the thug continued to shake.  After thirty seconds, the thug fell down dead as the fire alarm blared through the kitchen.

Murdock couldn’t help it as he yelled one more baseball pun over the loud, blaring alarm.  “You’re out, bitch!”

Miller’s heart was racing too much to berate his friend for the ridiculous baseball puns.  “We gotta go help Schuman and Death!” he exclaimed with fear, knowing they were both in conflict with thugs exactly like this one.

Out in the buffet foyer, the place looked half like a food fight, half like a war zone.  Stainless steel bins lay empty all over the floor where food had been tossed at oncoming guards and thugs alike.  Unconscious men were crumbled all over the floor, covered in salad dressings and cooked vegetables.

Two combatants were squared off and duking it out in the middle of the mess as the whole area boomed from the very loud fire alarm.  The scene was insanely disorienting.

Sergeant Schuman stood a foot smaller than the thug and she weighed a hundred and fifty pounds less, but her DNA gave her advantages that other humans didn’t possess.  Her muscle fibers twitched twice as fast as a normal human and she had double the bone density of normal humans too.  Her opponent was freakishly strong and felt no pain.  The scene was bizarre.

Despite being ridiculously shorter, Schuman was able to blast the man’s jaw and eyes at will, hitting him like a herd of elephants hopped up on meth and viagra while having a pachyderm orgy, but the man took every punch as if she was only slapping him.  His face was shattered and his eyes were swollen but he continued to punch back at her.

Schuman dodged and ducked his swings but one connected to her shoulder and sent her backwards.  Despite the fact that her skeleton could take insane abuse, his sheer size was punishing her face and body each time he connected.  Normal women would drop from this immense male violence, but the pain only made Schuman more focused and hungry to fight.

Miller and Murdock came blasting out of the kitchen to see the mismatched fighters locked in combat in what looked like a tornado disaster area.  Schuman connected a six punch combination on the man that included hits to the body as well as the face.  Miller and Murdock hustled towards the fight as they heard the thug’s ribs crack and his jaw rattle over the loud fire alarm, but he clearly felt no pain as he continued to throw hay makers at the sergeant.

“Sarge!  The cavalry’s coming!” Murdock yelled as he and Miller stepped over men whom they’d knocked out just a few minutes earlier.

Schuman jumped back a few feet and took her eyes off of her opponent to yell, “Let me finish this, fuckers!”

Murdock and Miller slowed down as they approached the fight to see Schuman advance quickly at the thug and throw a huge uppercut.  The man didn’t have his fists up to defend his face and the sergeant’s punch lifted him off the ground as it connected with the bottom part of his jaw.  The man came down with his feet in front of him and landed on his butt.  The back of his head hit the ground hard and the sound of his skull cracking reverberated over the never ending fire alarm noise.

Schuman licked her lips as she saw the thug’s life force leave his body and the satisfaction of fighting swept over her.

Murdock reached the sergeant and hollered, “You’re a psychopath.”

“Yes, I am!” Schuman replied with a happy yell.  “Let’s go find the fella that was chasing Death!”

The three agents took off down the long hallway to chase after the last of the three thugs.

Meanwhile up the hallway, Agent Death had bumped into special agent Bradley McVandalay coming out of the mens restroom.  After a brief and cordial exchange, they acknowledged the thug that was approaching.  Death had ducked into the gift shop nearby to look for anything she could use as a weapon while McVandalay had removed his suit jacket in preparation for a bloody fist fight.

“I gotta warn you, pal,” McVandalay said over the fire alarm, “I’m a Cubs fan, which makes me a very angry man.”  As he walked towards the thug, he muttered to himself, “Fucking Cubs.”  McVandalay had suppressed decades of anger and in this moment, he let all of it surface.  He felt a power overcome him that he’d never felt.  His rage and focus were complete as the dark side took over his brain.

The thug lunged for McVandalay and took a swing at his face.  The secret agent was a tiny bit smaller than the thug, but he was faster and stronger.  McVandalay’s arms came up to block the punch and as the thugs fist hit his arms, McVandalay felt the intensity of the punch reverberate through his body.  He took a few steps back and the darkness consumed him.  “You’re dead, mother fucker.”  McVandalay took a few swings as the thug blocked his punches with his own arms.  McVandalay took note that the man didn’t slow down.  He was always pressing forward.

Agent Death came flying out of the casino gift shop with some women’s leggings in hand.  She saw McVandalay connect a jab and uppercut to the thugs face and could hear the punishing contact over the loud alarm.  Any normal man would’ve crumbled, but the thug literally shook his head to shake it off, then continued pushing forward.

McVandalay was backing up and circling around, keeping the perfect distance so the man couldn’t hit him.  Every time the thug tried to punch, McVandalay avoided the attack by mere inches and then connected with his own counter punches before backing up to keep out of the thugs punching range.

Running fast with her head low, Death sprinted in hopes of catching the man’s legs.  She closed in on the fight as McVandalay blasted the thug with a few more bone chilling jabs that temporarily stunned the man.  Death lunged at the thugs lower body and in one solid motion she wrapped her arms around the mans legs.  As her shoulder connected with the thug, her momentum stopped cold as if she’d tried to tackle a stop sign.  The jolt went through her body as her arms clasped around the man’s legs in a rock solid locking grip.

The thug looked down and dropped his guard for just a moment as McVandalay threw a full power punch.  It connected with the thugs jaw and spun his head and torso to the side.  Agent Death held onto the thug with her arms in a tight bear hug, but she was still dazed from the jarring contact of trying to tackle the man.  The man recovered and faced the American again only to receive another full power punch from McVandalay’s other fist.  The sound of bone cracking could be heard over the insanely loud fire alarm as the thug’s body twisted in the opposite direction.

Agent Death had recovered enough to realize where she was.  In some sort of super human move, she used women’s leggings to wrap them around the thug in a super fast movement and somehow tied them around the mans ankles in a knot.  The man had recovered from McVandalay’s punches but now he couldn’t move his feet.  Agent Death rolled away as she heard more bone crushing punches land from McVandalay’s fists.

Out of the blue, Death saw a blurry human come flying into the frey.  It was sergeant Schuman.  She had thrown a haymaker punch and blasted the thug in the lower kidneys with gravity shattering force.  The thug fell to his knees as McVandalay timed a perfect outside hook that connected with the mans face.  The thug fell over hard.

Agent Death reached into her pocket and pulled out a device that looked like a pen that she extended quickly to the length of a car antenna.  She expertly poked the thug in the neck.  An electric current flowed through the man at high voltage as his heart gave out inside of his body.  The thug went still and Death withdrew the weapon from the dead mans neck, then collapsed it and put it back in her pocket.

Special agents Murdock and Miller caught up to the fight and saw the carnage that had been inflicted on the thug.  Murdock yelled out another dumb baseball pun.  “No World Series rings for this fucker!”

Miller finally spoke up.  “You don’t even play baseball, Murdock!  What’s wrong with you?”

Murdock had no pride when it came to his dumb humor.  “No, but I know a guy who plays!”

“No you don’t,” Schuman said plainly as the fire alarm continued to blare.

Murdock shrugged.  “No, I don’t, but you can imagine if I did!”

The whole exchange was ridiculous, but Team Whiskey wasn’t known for being funny.  They were killers of bad men, and today they’d neutralized three very bad thugs who’d been evil to people for a long, long time.

“Let’s find Doc, Blacktide and Blitz and bounce, y’all,” Death said.  She lifted her wrist watch to her face.  “Roar, Death here.  Where are the others?”

Up in a hotel suite, computer whiz Yen Roar and General Rice were sitting in front of three dozen computer screens that had been laid out over a make shift desk.  They’d hacked into the security system of the hotel and had taken over the cameras while simultaneously broadcasting inert footage into the actual security office.  None of the carnage that had occurred was recorded, so when security teams would later try to examine the footage to get a better idea of what had transpired that day, they’d see nothing.

Yen Roar clicked a button on her computer screen and the fire alarm in the casino turned off.

Agent Death spoke into her wrist watch.  “Thank you!  That fucking alarm was driving me crazy.”

Roar clicked a button on her microphone and said, “Unbelievable work down there!  I’m looking for Doc.  Blitz and Blacktide exited with screaming patrons.”  Roar was looking everywhere on her screens for special agent Dale O’Connor but she couldn’t find him.  “No clue where Doc is.”

“Typical,” Death said.  Her ears were ringing from the alarm and despite that it was now eerily quiet in the abandoned casino, she still felt disoriented from the noise.  “Check the bar, Roar, and let me know.  We’re gonna get out of here through one of the side doors.”

Murdock grinned.  “This game isn’t gonna go extra innings?”

Schuman was indignant.  In her typical angry sarcasm with Murdock, she said, “One more stupid pun and I’ll rip your baseballs off of you and jam them up your home plate.”

“Ohhh!” Murdock said with glee.  “Nice one!”  He lifted his hand to get a high five from her but Schuman ignored him.  He clinched his fist and swung it around in the air a few times as if he were celebrating something, then put his hand down.  “Fair enough,” he said defeatedly to his friend.

“Let’s find Doc and bounce, gang,” Miller said.

McVandalay looked down the hallway and saw that the buffet area was a complete disaster.  “Well, we came to make a mess.  I’d say our mission is complete.”

Roars voice filled their ear pieces.  “I found Doc.  He’s walking out the front door with a bottle of booze in hand.  He’s drinking straight from the bottle.”

“That’s our Doc,” agent Death said to her wrist watch.  “I’ll let you know when we load up with Porter in a few minutes.  See you at the rendezvous point tomorrow.”

“Roger,” Roar said in their ear pieces.

Death, McVandalay, Murdock and Miller composed themselves as McVandalay gathered his suit jacket that he’d thrown up against the hallway wall.  The four agents walked with a purpose because none of them wanted to be around for what was about to happen next.  

Remembering that their fellow teammates Owens and Boothausen were crawling around in the air vents, Miller lifted his wrist watch to his face.  “Owens, Boothausen, report!”

After a few seconds, the voice of special agent Owens popped into their ear pieces.  “I found out why the carpenters who built this place blocked off this part of the casino.  It’s the highest security area I’ve ever seen.  It’s gotta be where El Padre hangs out when he’s here.”

Boothausen’s voice popped into their ears.  “Nice work, Owens!  I’m leaving the main security office.  I’ve erased all the footage from the past six months, so when they investigate, they won’t have anything to examine but empty hard drives.  I’ll be cleared out of the building in the next minute.”

“Nice!” Miller said to his wrist watch.  The four agents were heading towards the exit and the casino felt eerie being completely empty.  “Owens, how close are you to evacuating?”

Owens was chipper as he said, “I’m gonna hang out here for a bit longer and break into this high security area.  It’s driving me bonkers.  I wanna know what’s in there.”

As the agents were stepping into the cool Mexican afternoon air, the sunshine made them all squint as their eyes adjusted.  Miller was serious as he said, “Owens, you know what comes next!  Get outta there!”

“I’ll be fine,” Owens insisted.  “Don’t worry about me.  Finish this thing and I’ll catch up with you guys tonight.  I won’t sleep until I figure out how to break in there.”

“Jesus, Owens!  Don’t be stubborn!” Miller insisted.  The fresh air felt good in his lungs after breathing recycled air for the past few hours.

“Don’t worry about me, Miller!  I’m good!  Do what you gotta do!” Owens said enthusiastically.

“Roger,” Miller replied.  “Roar, we’re clear.  Do the honors.”

The voice of Yen Roar filled their ears.  “But what about Owens?” she asked with concern.

“He does what he does.  Fuck ‘im.  Finish the mission, Roar,” Miller instructed.

Yen Roar looked at general Rice.  Rice had refilled her coffee and was taking a sip as the two women made eye contact.  Rice nodded, as if to say, “Fuck Owens, he’s on his own.  Do it.”

“Roger,” Roar said in their ear pieces.  “Project chaos complete.”  She clicked a button on her computer screen and the sound of compressed air explosions resonated all throughout the casino.  “If this doesn’t piss off El Padre to flush him out of hiding, nothing will.”

In the distance, a series of industrial grade fart bombs detonated inside of the casino that left such a putrid smell for so long that it would take a few months to finally clear out the stench only after cleaning crews adorned in full hazmat suits replaced every slot machine, table and chair, while all of the carpet had to be ripped up and taken off site to be burned as a sacrifice to the gods of all bad smelling things.