Outrun Stories #38

“How long have we be doing this now, Jack?” She sits back in her chair and curls her hair with the finger of her right hand.

“I dunno, Betty. How old are you now? Sixty? Seventy?” Boom, right hook to the jaw from one of her asshole henchmen. Fuck these guys, fuck her, fuck all this noise. She’s right, it’s been far too god damn long.

“You respect the boss,” the asshole who clocked me says with a thick Russian accent.

“Looks like you’ve got some real tough guys working for you these days, huh, Betty?” I pause and look up at him, wired from head to toe with implants, not a single part of him that’s not jacked in and jacked up. “This the best you can do? What about some home-grown talent?”

She laughs. “Oh, the Man of Action, big and bold until the last. Well, Jack, seems like your number’s up. We’ve got you good this time, no way out as far as I can see. And for what? You’ve not proven anything you haven’t already showed in the past. You’re the best Jack, you are ‘The Man of Action,’ you’re Jack fucking Fury for Christ sake. But you still keep chasing it, you still keep on going.”

“I’m past learning my lesson,” I growl at her.

“Ah, you’re probably right, Jack. You’re probably right. What are we going to do with you? So many years fighting, you had it all, but you couldn’t walk away, and now we’re left like this.”

“I never had it all,” I grind my teeth and look at her as she raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, you mean, you never had me? Yes, Jack, quite the compliment over the years has your attention been, but you know, I’ve never really enjoyed a show off.”

I crack the detonator implanted in one of my back teeth and hear the ticking go down in my head. All or nothing with this one, she’s not getting the pleasure of taking me out.

“Jack!” She’s smiling. “Do you really think we’ve not taken precautions against that type of thing in here?” She’s tutting and shaking her head as I can head the detonator go dormant. “The man of action, we were expecting such big things. I guess we’ve both grown old now haven’t we?”

“Time was, I’d have been out of these coughs and have that assholes face smeared across my knee and you laid out on that table.” I shake my head.

“I know Jack, I know, but we both got old and slow and you see, where I changed, where I could adapt, you couldn’t.” She stands and takes a step to me, pulling out a hand cannon that’ll take my head clean off.

“About that time I guess. We all gotta go somehow, some day. If it was going to be anyone, it’s probably a good thing it’s you.”

“Indeed, Jack Fury. Man of action, no more.”