Project Maigo(48)
Maybe the President’s.
Damn, damn, damn. How did I not see this coming? As much as I loathe Endo, he must feel similarly about me. Probably worse. I see him as a dangerous criminal. A murderer. It’s my job to not like him. But me? I stole his dreams, albeit, by accident. I’d really rather not have a 350-foot-tall guardian.
Endo keeps his back to me, knowing I won’t try to attack him. I’m not in a rush to die. I back step toward the roof entrance. Try the green door’s handle. Locked. The door feels solid. Metal. No way I’m kicking my way through in the five seconds it will take Endo to reach me. I look for Betty and find her five hundred feet up and a half mile away. Even if one of them is looking in this direction, which I doubt, they’d never see me.
I’m on my own.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Endo says, turning toward me, his hawkish eyes locked on me, unblinking.
I stand my ground, fists clenched. “How can you be sure this will work?”
“I can’t.” He circles me slowly. “But either of the two prospective outcomes will be positive.”
Two outcomes. 1) Nemesis shows up. 2) I die.
Great.
Endo breaks out of his circular route and struts toward me. His walk becomes a kick that misses my nose by inches. But this was just a diversion, because he’s spinning still and airborne, his other leg coming up. I raise both arms just in time to block the kick, but his shin on my forearms is still painful as hell. And the force of the blow knocks me to the roof.
The sticky tar clings to me as I push myself up. I’m not sure if Endo is being sporting or just trying to prolong my suffering, but he gives me time to collect myself. I shake out my arms. My fingers are cramping up as the muscles in my arms try to shift back in place. I’m lucky he didn’t break them.
He comes at me again, this time leading with his fists. The man’s a blur, punching from every possible direction with the quickness of a striking cobra. I focus on blocking. If I attempt to strike back, I’ll just leave myself open. He batters my aching arms, and despite my best efforts, he lands a few solid blows. To my cheek. My ribs. My gut. This last one pushes me back, hunched over, sucking in air. My heel hits something solid, and I start to fall.
When my body reaches a thirty degree angle, I catch a glimpse of what’s beneath me. Nothing. I’m falling off the side! My only escape. I embrace it and let myself drop.
Then I stop, hovering out over a 325-foot fall. Endo has me by the shirt. When I reach out to wrench his hand away, he catches my wrist, yanks me up and flips me. After a short flight, I reach the terminus of my descent, landing square on my back. I’m wracked by coughs, as I roll to my knees and climb to my feet. Endo stalks toward me again and resumes his merciless assault, this time landing more punches than not.
A slap strikes my cheek. An open-palm slap. The man is fucking with me. Humiliating me! Before I can think, I lean into his punch, absorb it with my kidney and throw my hardest jab. I’m not sure whether it’s a good punch or because of the sudden reversal in strategies, but the strike connects hard with Endo’s chin, snapping his head back. While he stumbles back, I crumple to the roof, clutching my side, wishing I had arms like Shiva so I could clutch the rest of me.
Endo rubs his jaw. Blood drips from his mouth. “You can’t win.”
His arrogance is really starting to grate on me. As he closes in to resume my beating, his guard up, I lose my patience. With an angry shout I charge forward, linebacker style, arms spread wide. He makes me pay for the sloppy move by driving his foot into my crotch, but momentum and anger carry me past the pain.
I hit him hard, lifting him off the roof. I can feel his elbow driving into my back, again and again, but the pain is numb. Distant. It’s like when you have a headache and someone tells you to bite your finger, one pain driving the other away. Whatever he’s doing to my back can’t compare to the pain in my balls.
I jump, lean forward and slam the much smaller man into the roof, allowing my shoulder to compress his belly. He shouts in pain. Satisfying pain. Before he can recover, I fling myself away from his fist and wrap his lower limbs in a vicious leg lock. When I’m done with him, his days of prancing around me will be over.
I squeeze hard, eliciting a scream of pain from Endo. His muscles tear. His ligaments stretch, ready to snap. “You can’t win!” he screams again. Before I can wonder why he’s still convinced of victory, I feel a burning sensation spreading through my thigh. The burn transforms into mind-numbing pain, and my brain screams at me that something is fundamentally wrong with my body. I lean up to look, my side roaring in pain, and I see what’s happened.