Bionic was running.
He wasn’t running from the police, or the feds, or anything supernatural.
Bionic was running from Doty.
The surroundings were green, all buildings were rubble. A wind buffeted the hulky man’s bare chest, but he couldn’t let it slow him down.
Bionic wasn’t sure how Doty found him, or even how the bastard got to this world, but bionic knew that if Doty caught up, he would be dead. It wasn’t that Doty was much bigger or stronger than the runaway agent. It was that Doty believed he could kill Bionic, and Bionic believed it as well.
After running for what seemed like hours, Bionic finally collapsed on a smashed sidewalk, breathless. He had accepted defeat, accepted death. Doty was tireless, relentless.
Bionic closed his eyes, and thought back to the time he had with Team 13. He remembered the funny misunderstandings and arguments to the camaraderie he felt chugging bullets into terrorists alongside Andy and Mark. The attempts to seduce women and evade taxes while still holding onto his well-used federal ID badge. Tears rolled down his eyes.
When Bionic looked up, panting, he saw a figure standing above him. A black tie and suitcoat were flapping in the heavy wind.
Bionic looked at the suit’s face. It was Mark. Bionic looked to the agent’s left, and saw Doty. He was holding a handgun.
Doty gave the gun to Johnson. Johnson cocked it and pointed at Bionic’s head. Bionic squinted, and saw Johnson’s lips move soundlessly. Bionic watched the lips form the words “Goodbye, Mister Pemental.” Then Johnson’s triggerfinger began to move. Bionic screamed.
When the hulky agent opened his eyes, he was alone, wrapped in a dead hobo’s blanket in an abandoned subway terminal.
Bionic looked around, He was drenched in sweat, and voracious. He tried to figure out where he was. Lake and 501st, read a sign. Chicago.
Bionic felt an anger growing inside of him. He tried to write it off as hunger.
He tried.
***
Frink gasped as the Team stepped out of their new car in front of a superhighrise. It was impossible immaculate, a postmodern tower adorned with Classic revivalist pillars and cornices. The building was lower East Side, in the wealthy part of town. It looked like a ridiculously stretched version of the old-fashioned brownstones and mansions around it.
“Beautiful,” Frink sighed, marveling at their new home.
“It’s okay,” Doty grumbled as he dragged Frink by the collar into the lobby.
“Alright,” Doty said as the four agents and Ashley loaded the elevator. “Let’s get one thing straight. We take orders exactly as they come, and we don’t ask any question about Pemental. Got it?”
Andy defiantly turned to Doty and asked, “Who died and put you in charge?”
Johnson replied, “Agent Doty is only reminding us of orders we have already received. Our benefactors have placed restrictions on our actions for our safety.” Mark was referring to the Majestic Twelve.
“Great Glavin,” Frink argued, throwing his hands out as best he could, “any more restrictions and I’m emigrating to Oceania. At least they get chocolate rations there.”
“This is not up for discussion, is it, Agent Johnson?” Doty said, completely monotone.
Johnson nodded slowly and the team exited the elevator.
Ashley suddenly asked, “Wait, where am I going to school now?”
***
“Agent Doty, report.”
“Frink is subversive, but can be bullied. Andy seems to want to rebel, but doesn’t have support. Or a spine, for that matter. Johnson is a clone. That’s easy.”
“And the girl?’
“Who? Oh yeah, that. More observation needed. Maybe. Bugged Johnson’s room twice.”
“Good. That will be all.”
“Any word on Bionic?” Doty rapidly added, but the transmission had already ended. Doty didn’t really care. If there was anything important, he’d already have known. And as long as he made sure this group was beaten into subservience, his superiors would be happy.
It looked like this was going to be an easy job after all.
***
“I said hands on your – ”
The angry cop was cut off by a chair to the head. Bionic had hurled it from across the room. It knocked the female out cold. The former agent then picked up another chair and threw it at a plastic window. The chair bashed the plastic, only cracking it slightly. Bionic hated these new clear-plastic windows.
The hulky man quickly located an alternate means of escape through an rotting wooden door. The cop’s partner was running into the dilapidated pawn shop. Bionic rammed through the cheap door into a storage room.
The former agent had come out of the subway into an urban slum, somewhere far west of downtown. Unfortunately for him, he emerged very close to a streetgang that was being pursued by a few go-getter officers. The gang fired on the hulky man, and triggered a massive burst of rage.
The gang was out in a few minutes. Bionic was barely injured. Then came the out-of-place cops. They chased him through a few poor shops until Bionic found this place.
Now, in the dim sideroom, Bionic frantically searched for a reflective surface. He clutched the stone for dear life, but the blood-diluted sweat of his palms made the little green chunk slide out of his hands into a pile of valuable stones someone had pawned off.
“Oh great,” Bionic groaned as he hustled to find the stone from his hell. “Why can’t bullets just kill me instead of just make me bleed? It’s such a hassle.”
Bionic could hear the policeman’s radio from inside the shop. A silent alarm had called for reenforcements, according to the dispatcher.
The former agent grabbed stones frantically, feeling them and tossing them aside. Where was it?
The cop was just feet away, on the other side of the doorway. Bionic knew the guy’s gun was out.
The radio was telling the officer to wait for backup. The officer turned the radio off.
Bionic picked up stone after stone, terrified. A Victorian mirror was a few feet away. Sweat beads fell of the man’s head.
The outlawed agent heard a step, and fabric rubbing against itself. He whirled around just in time to get shot twice in the chest.
Bionic plopped backwards. The cop moved in, gun pointed at the downed figure. Then Bionic kneed the officer in the groin with amazing speed, and he tried to stand up.
The officer reacted immediately, firing another shot wildly into Bionic’s shoulder. The former agent yelped, then grasp for a nearby candlestick and threw it at the cop’s face. He missed.
The cop was, fortunately, distracted for the moment. The hulky outlaw looked around for another makeshift weapon, blinking away pain and a misplaced urge to urinate. Suddenly, Bionic spotted the unmistakably shadowed green rock a few centimeters from his head. He reached and grasped it with his uninjured arm and launched himself at the mirror.
Just before going through, Bionic shouted at the recovering cop, “And tell them that Cap’n Bionic’s gonna give ‘em hell!”
Bionic landed in a dark and windy place. He knew he was safe. It was time to continue his journey to Milwaukee.
But first, he’d want to find a hospital.
Home