Fashion Streak

As the Mercedes sputtered to a halt at the side of a deserted road Skulls slowly rotated his head to face the Templar, who was forced to sit in the back seat after refusing to take off his helmet.

“Your little shortcut has gotten us on ze side of ze road—“ Skulls put up his hand even though the Templar did not look like he going to interrupt him, “after taking us to three netball courts with zero attractive women in zem.”

The Templar pointed to a car dealership down the road.

“You’re buying?” Said Skulls. The Templar waved his hand and stepped out of the car, motioning for the others to follow. He was first followed by Domerator, then Von Braun and finally Skulls. He went to the back of the car and withdrew a guitar case, placing his M16 inside it.

Domerator looked at him quizzically for a moment and did the same, putting his L1A1 into a trumpet case. Von Braun held onto the laptop case that had been sitting on his lap.       

“Vhat are you doing?” Said Skulls, gripping onto the car door. The Templar put a finger in front of his helmet, and nodded slowly. Skulls narrowed his eyes and headed towards his AK-74, already in a case made to look like a folded a-frame. The Templar then started to walk away, followed by a stiff Domerator and Von Braun. Skulls trailed behind, glove tightening around the a-frame, eyes fixed on the Templar. Slowly the helmet rotated towards Skulls, and he swore that as the Templar held up his phone he saw a wink behind the helmet. The car behind them exploded as the Templar hit “call.” Domerator immediately holstered his L1A1 and began scanning the afternoon light around them, seeing nothing. Skulls however stood staring at Tathem, ignoring the ringing in his ears.

“Is zis your concept of a joke?” He said, unaware he was making no sound. Dom lowered his gun and helped Von Braun up.

“Oh, you were getting rid of the getaway car. I thought we were being tailed.” Von Braun sighed,

“At least I know vere zat low yield nu—“ Skulls cut him off as he stormed past the Templar away from the burning wreckage.

“I’m not vasting my time with an idiot who thinks ze best way to avoid heat is to bomb ze  getavay. I—“ he stopped as he walked past the alley.

“You can’t be serious.” The Templar skipped giddily towards down the alleyway. He stopped to sit astride a white sports bike, stroking the polished frame. Domerator followed, circling around to a similar bike in black as Von Braun hopped into a sidecar fixed to an older bike. He clicked and pointed to the seat on it. Skulls pointed fiercely at all of them.

"Not—” He stopped as something got his attention. On the other side of the alley he saw a man in a brown jacket kneeling behind an expensive camera. He quickly stood up and kissed his hand, holding three fingers together towards the sky. He said something in Italian but no one heard it over the loud clang of Skulls punching the Templar in the face, pushing him off the bike. The photographer looked down, and tore down the alley. With the others in the way, Skulls keyed the bike and shot it out of the alley, turning it around the block towards the other end of the alley. As he did a hard left he tucked his a-frame under his arm and began fiddling with the lock.

“I… did naht… consent...” After another left he found the photographer mounting his own motorcycle, checking over his shoulder before taking off away. “TO HAVING MY PICTURE TAKEN!” Skulls accelerated, tearing down the road after him. It was the only thing close to a shout Skulls had said in Milan. The traffic began to thicken and Skulls weaved between cars and lorries to catch the photographer. After a hard bank to the right Skulls peeled off into a much quieter street, He’d lost sight of his quarry, and came to a stop further at the head of an intersection going right. He could hear no motorcycle, but he smelled something.

Bread.

Skulls turned in his seat far down the road, he could see skid marks, smoke;

And a man in a pale brown top holding his head on a street corner.

“Fallen off, have ve?”

Skulls popped open the frame and grabbed his Kalashnikov. Just as the photographer turned around Skulls placed a round is his head. The thud of his body hitting the ground far away at the same time his a-frame clattered to the asphalt, the second cartridge rolling around on top of it soon after. Skulls slung his rifle and took down the street away from where he’d been shooting.

“Maybe I should have dealt vit ze ozers…” He thought back to the figures in the jumpsuit and trench coat by the corner.

Hm. Modern fashion.

As Skulls peeled away from the site of the shooting he began to slow down, enjoying the white facades of Milan as the sun started its decent. He was starting to enjoy the wind when something made him scowl.

To his left Skulls heard loud, obnoxious music.

EDM. Ze worst thing my country has ever done.

He thought for a few moments about how accurate that was, but couldn’t think of anything worse Germany was responsible for. As he prepared to turn left, preparing to circle back to the rest of his team, an explosion roared in front of him, He swung his bike as far as he could and the shockwave threw him off the bike. Skulls kicked the bike away from him and landed on his shoulder blade, rolling onto his back. Skulls groaned on the middle of the road, struggling to lift his head as a rapid exchange of gunfire crackled above him. He wiggled his toes.

Gut.

He began to crawl on his back away from the road, heading to the bicycle rack his motorbike had ended up on. In the clearing smoke he made out two figures racing across the street. One of them dropped something in an open patch of the cloud, a pair of sunglasses that shone in his eyes as they hit the ground. A silhouette rolled across the ground and picked them up, resuming its advance. Through the smoke Skulls caught a glimpse of bright red. His eyelids fluttered, making sure there wasn’t blood in them. The EDM continued to thump in his head. Skulls narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the red dot as it bounced awkwardly. He reached for his AK, but the pain in his shoulder shot through him and he stopped, dropping his head on the concrete.  

Juliet hung off the ladder, listening to the sound of the explosion now roaring through the tunnels. She listened, telling herself she was savouring the sound despite what the pain shooting through her left shoulder told her.

Come on Juliet.

She pulled herself up another rung, and another; hearing the echoes of conversation spiral up the ladder shaft. She hung on for another moment, panting as drops of blood fell to the bottom of the shaft. With a last heave, she climbed up the ledge and pulled herself to stand on the concrete, coming to a metre away from a door, sunlight dancing around the edges. Juliet took a step towards the door and nearly fell forward and headbutted it. She straightened herself and leant on the handle, though it didn’t swing outwards. With a grunt, she leant in and forced the door open with her right shoulder, ignoring the “pull” sign and coming out onto the street. She stared absently across it, patting her left thigh. It took her a few moments to remember that the satchel was on her right. She began to fiddle with the Velcro before she tore open a hole in the canvas and pulled a wire from it. She threw the satchel to the ground and looped the wire along the base of a bollard before continuing to trudge down the street.

Making it down the street her breathing slowed. She dropped her Vektor and continued stumbling down the street. She heard the door behind her swing open again. She closed her eyes and kept walking, speeding up. The time it took for the charge to go off seemed to be an eternity of her heart pounding and feet thumping but eventually she felt the warmth of the exploding satchel billow out and warm her back. She heard and exchange of gunfire, though not after her, and breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled herself around a corner and caught the wall. She heard the gunfire continue and opened her eyes again. Juliet put her left hand against her side and kept trudging down the street.

“What… the… fuck?” Polis slowed the SUV  down and peered through the windscreen. Watson crossed his arms.

“It’s obviously a bleeding woman.” Bob looked up at Frankie and Eric, now a bit further away now that they’d gotten a bigger car.

“Is a bleeding woman walking down the street a festival?” Before he could get a reply, Polis slammed the breaks of the car and rolled out the now open door, Frankie doing the same. Watson rubbed his head, smirking,

“Clearly it’s only one in Spain.” He was cut short by a bullet that went through the windshield and his hands tore off his seatbelt and he scrambled out the car. Bob tried to follow suit but his seatbelt refused to unbuckle. Another two bullets shredded the seat Eric had vacated a second earlier.

“Shit, not now!” He tried twisting out of it but it only made it worse. One bullet got close enough to tear through Polis’s seat and smash the seatbelt. He heard Polis’s H&K open fire across the street. He looked at the left door and saw a stream of bullets whizz back by in response.

Not that way.

A high calibre round to his right cut off his other exit. Bob scrambled over the back of the seat into the car’s rear. He held his pistol and shot the lock on the back door and kicked it open, the hydraulic lifts making it glide open a lot slower than he’d like. Bob squeezed out the hole and dropped on the ground. The car had stopped in the middle of the road and Polis and Frankie had taken cover by some parked cars to his left, pressed against the wall to his left were Eric and Watson.  Bob shakily rose to peer over the glass just as the door the bleeding woman came from exploded, taking all the glass in the car with it.

That was closer to them. He peered over again and ducked back down as he was met with more return fire. A bullet came from his side and tore through the car’s tyre, almost hitting his knee.

“Polis! They’re coming from the side!” Polis didn’t hear him and continued to fire into the smoke across the street. Bob peaked around, he didn’t see any of the assailants but a motorcyclist on the ground, metres away from his bike. He looked around the left side of the car. Now that Frankie had joined in the suppressive fire there was time to move. Bob took a deep breath and dashed out of cover. He made it half way before pivoting and running back behind the car. A bullet found him and tore through his belt, taking a belt loop with it.

“Bob!” Cried Watson from the other side of the street. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I forgot my lunchbox! My wife will kill me if there are more lids than containers!” With that he scrambled back into the shredded car, his pants dragging as he crawled through the back. He made it to the back seat and he stuck his hand over it, feeling around the shredded upholstery for it. A bullet whizzed past his hand and he pulled it back on his side of the seat. He stuck it out again, straining to reach further as another two bullets entered the car. His hand found the red plastic and he clutched it and held it tightly against his chest as the engine block was hit by much larger bullets. He got on his knees and jumped off, rolling around his lunchbox. More bullets ripping into the car told him that his cover wasn’t going to remain viable. Bob took another look to the left and made his move.

“Not now!” Scruffo began to slap the borrowed P90 to get rid of the bullet stuck in there. Rouge had finished reloading and popped over the top of the garden bed. He was about to lay down more fire when he spotted something strange in his sights.

“What the fuck…” It was a slightly overweight, middle aged man running across the road, a hand clutching either side of his trousers. In one of them lived a red lunchbox, slapping against the man’s thigh as he ran. A rifle round hit a window above him and a piece of glass fell down and cut his forehead in its descent.

“Shit.” Rouge clutched his skull and ducked below cover, trying to make it look like he wasn’t in pain. He coughed over his grunts of pains.

“Shoot them, silly man!” Said Ragana, loosing of a few shots to the other side of the road. “Now is not time to pretend.”

Rouge took a deep breath and swung his gun upwards, looking through the blood running down his face to put his sight over Ragana’s head. His hand trembled with fury and his finger began to squeeze the trigger. As the blood started to flow down his Chanel 4221 108/3P™ he looked at the Lithuanian woman who had tried to expose him.

Not yet.

He ducked back down behind the garden bed and waited for the fire to pause.

“I’m running low, we’re going to have to move soon!” Polis finished reloading and resumed his barrage of the other end of the road.

“Right behind you!” Cried Bob, sliding into place. Frankie took advantage of the lull in fire and leaned to the left, firing into a window.

“Good job distracting them with… whatever that was.” Polis kept casting his eyes towards his vest as he fired, in slower bursts than before.

“Watson we need to move, get smoke out!”

“Actually…” Watson cried from the other side of the street, “You’re supposed to say “Smoke out” when you’re throwing it!” Eric kept firing across the road and used his left hand to rip a grenade from Watson’s pocket and throw it into the street.  Polis’s grenade hit the beaten zone a few seconds later and both began to hiss white smoke.

“Go!” Cried Frankie, pushing Polis upwards, “I’ll keep them down.” Polis, Watson and Eric began to sprint down the street, Bob stayed behind as he tried to pull his pants as high as possible without standing straight. Frankie kept staring down his sight, focusing through the smoke.

“Sneaky little…” Bob saw the large woman they were shooting at on the edges of the cloud, and Frankie’s finger on the trigger. His eyes began to dart between the two.

“Who was that... FRANKIE!” He yanked Frankie back just as he fired, the shot missing the woman who scrambled back into cover.

“You fucking crazy?” Frankie spoke to a flapping lunchbox as Bob joined the others, escaping down the street.

“Where… are… the others…” Watson began to pant as he ran down the street, hoping his years catching up to him didn’t mean that the bullets would. He dashed around a corner and leaned against the wall. “Who… the fuck… were they?” Polis squeezed uncomfortably close to Watson and leaned around the corner.

“I see them, the others are coming.”

Eric began wrapping his carbonate arm with electrical tape, covering a hole where a bullet had left its mark.

“Probably someone like us. I hear that Chanel has its own mercenaries. Hey, isn’t it funny how we’re supposed to be protecting Calvin Klein from Chanel’s goons?” With breath returning to him, Watson turned his head at Eric,

“What?”

“Well I mean, Coco Chanel stole her trademarks from the Jews, and Calvin Klein’s a Jew.” Polis kept surveying the street but snorted in amusement.

“Yeah, I guess that is pretty funn— “ He was cut off by the sound of pistol rounds sweeping across the street.

“3’o’clock guys!” Bob kept running, with one hand firing wildly into an alley opposite. Eric raised his gun but seeing a trenchcoat and jumpsuit he quickly relaxed,

“They’re just models, calm down—“ He dived downwards as the one not in a jumpsuit or trenchcoat opened fire. Polis emptied his last mag into the alley way and the rest of the team dashed from the street into an open alfresco.   One bullet smashed through a “no BYO” sign just as Bob and his lunchbox flapped past it. The tables had all been deserted, nearly all of them were covered in half eaten meals. Bob spotted a purse left on the ground.

“Gucci! Sally will love this!” Before he could grab it Polis grabbed him by his sagging pants and pulled him along, following the rest of the team.

“Fuck!” Sage dropped to the floor, clutching his abdomen. TBM stepped forward and opened fire on the now retreating squad, covering Blackjack as he started dragging Sage down the alley.

“I’m fine!” Sage stood up, one hand on his SKS and the other on his abdomen as they sprinted down the alley. Blackjack let go and ducked behind an alcove as the other two kept going down the alley, ejecting rounds down their approach. Sage laid beside a dumpster and made a few choice shots of his own as Blackjack broke cover and dashed down the alley, catching up to TBM.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re shooting at us.”

“Why?”

They got to the end of the alley and ran out onto the street. The panic that had emptied the blocks they’d passed through had only just spread to the one they had entered. As Sage caught up to them the team got a prime view of the small plaza as a craft jewellery market emptied out, the setting sun casting long shadows where the buildings let it through. As the final occupants flooded out, and the ringing had gone from his ears, Blackjack began to hear something.

“Sirens… SHIT!” Sage had just started to dart into the plaza when Blackjack grabbed his collar and pulled him back,

“You trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’m trying to get my mother.” The sirens grew closer. TBM started to watch the long shadows at the edges of the alleys, his eyes twitching.

“Really not the time guys.” Blackjack took out his phone and showed it to Sage,

“There’s a manhole 100 metres from here that takes us into some service tunnels, from there we can get to a train line and get the hell out of here.”

“How are we getting through security?”

“It’s 2017 Fashion Week, half the city is wearing stupid coats—“

“But what about—“ A shot rang out and Blackjack ducked and starting sprinting across the street towards the manhole. “Where—“ TBM picked up Sage in both his arms and started took off behind Blackjack. The facades in the evening light were illuminated by the blue and red of the sirens turning the corner.

“Shit!” TBM sprayed the manhole cover only to miss the lock. He dropped Sage and put the fingers on his right hand through some of the bullet holes and tore the cover off, sending it flying towards the approaching Carabinieri. Blackjack and Sage slid down the ladder and TBM jumped down after them, some of his coat getting caught and tearing on his way down. They landed at the bottom of a yellow lit tunnel, adorned with bright green exit signs. The sirens grew louder and louder, the sound tearing down the tunnel before getting quieter and passing away.

“Oh.” Said Blackjack. “They’re not coming for us.” TBM straightened his coat out, struggling to find the buttons in the dim light.

“Then who are they going for?” Sage dropped the magazine he was holding hearing it.

“Who do you think?” He said coldly. “They’re going for the hit squads that have got my mother—“

“Oh please,” said TBM, turning around and crossing his arms, “Can you stop talking about the danger your mother is in, ever since we started it’s been “mother this, mortal danger that, no one cares.”

“Dude.” Said Blackjack. “His mother is kind of a big deal…” They started walking down the tunnel, the faintest traces of EDM thumping through the ground around them. “We need to find her.”

“I never had much of a mother and look how I turned out?” Sage reached a heavy metal door and turned to face TBM.

“Unable to go in any public areas because of a—“ As Sage opened the door TBM saw the frame filled by a pair of white gloves on an AR70. TBM’s arm shot up and fired. One bullet bounced from a silver button, the second tore through a black jacket, the third passed through a neck.

“Submachine gun in your arm…” the white gloves dropped the rifle and clutched at the neck, he staggered backwards in the tunnel and his hat tumbled from his head. TBM lowered his arm.

“Shit…”

“TBM.” Said Sage, watching the blood spurt through the man’s fingers, “why did you shoot the man dressed like a Nazi. Wearing white gloves. In Italy. Who’s probably a cop.” Blackjack rushed forward and put his hands on the man’s neck, trying to stop the blood.

“You mean a fucking Carabinieri we are so screwed they’re going to fucking—“

“Well it’s not my fault he’s carrying an assault rifle in some random tunnel—“

“What’s wrong with you, you trying to finish the job—“ They all silenced themselves and stared intently at the radio on the Carabinieri.

“Anyone… speak Italian?” Asked Sage. Blackjack looked up at the circle of fading sunlight above them.

“This whole arrangement Milan had with the biotechs was on the condition that we weren’t going to cause undue damage to property or civilians…”

“Or,” continued Sage, “The police…” Both slowly turned their eyes to TBM.

“We can ahh… look for your mother now?” Sage and Blackjack turned away from him, walking around the Carabinieri lying under the amber light on the concrete floor. They continued to walk, making it the next metal door. Blackjack looked at TBM for a moment and spat on the ground, closing the door behind him.

Through shouts and gunfire, and a belching gas main somewhere, all drained out by the pounding in his ear three shots came through and bolted his eyes open. The shots came through his other ear, the one pressed to the ground. Slowly Skulls’ raised his head, he put a hand to his eyes and wiped away the blood.

Something had become clear to him. He stood up and walked over his motorcycled. He surveyed the street, shell casings littered everywhere, a doorway to his left missing half its frame, revealing a dark ladder shaft. He kept staggering forward. To his right he looked down the street, a perforated SUV lying empty in the middle of it. He took another step, walking into the cloud of billowing smoke coming from the ladder shaft. The street was empty save for him, the gunshots and sirens a block away distant in his mind. Skulls’ eyes were following a trail of blood, leading towards a discarded Vektor. He followed the trail with his eyes and saw it lead far down the street, away from the corner. Skulls closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and listened to the ringing in his ears with a hand on the cut on his head.

He put his hand on his radio. It still worked.

“Gentlemen.” He growled. “Ve are going to kill the red haired lesbian.”