Five Deadly Rebels, a Kung Fu Sci-Fi Scripted Podcast. Hosted by Ian Tuason. Music by Wu-Tang Clan producer, Cilvaringz. This is Episode 9, I Choose Violence.
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”
The Book of Revelations 13:17-18
Chapter 29: The Moments Between Memory
Mickey sits at the edge of his mom’s hospital bed in the palliative care unit, fighting off sleep. He’s fixated on her sleeping face, usually tense and bewildered by the Alzheimer's disease gnawing at her mind, but now her face is soft, resting. The furrowed lines of confusion on her forehead now smoothed flat, and Mickey cherishes the familiar sight of her before the sickness took hold.
A window facing the bed bathed the room in a dim glow from the city lights outside. Mickey feels so grateful that Aneesa is working the night shift tonight, who always lets him stay after visiting hours—as long as he wants.
Earlier in the night, she had given him a hospital gown to wear over his jeans and hoodie, marked with grime and dust from the street, so that he’d feel more comfortable sitting on his mom’s clean sheets. The palliative care unit rarely carried small gowns for a fourteen-year-old like Mickey, but he made do with the oversized gown that seems to envelope his short, skinny frame, rolling up its sleeves and tucking its long hem into his grungy socks with fraying threads and a ripped hole at his big toe.
Mickey’s mom is only thirty, but the aggressive, premature disease had stolen the shine in her scarlet hair, intermingling with so many strands of gray. Her hospital gown drapes loosely over her deteriorating figure lying on her back beside Mickey, slowly eroding away, like the young, vibrant woman she once was.
Mickey carefully rises to his feet and tiptoes around the bed to draw the divider curtain closed, hiding the vacant bed beside them, its empty sheets neatly folded, reminding Mickey of the patient that died there the night before.
Mickey sits back down beside his mom, his weight sinking into the mattress, waking her. She squirms slightly and opens her eyes, gradually focusing on Mickey beside her.
“Mickey?” she whispers, a rare spark of recognition in her eyes.
Joy ignites inside Mickey’s chest, “Yes, Momma, it’s Mickey.”
She looks around the room, deep lines of worry etching onto her face. “Where are we?”
“We’re in the hospital, Momma.”
“Oh,” a fleeting light of understanding flashes in her eyes, which surprises Mickey.
“Am I sick?”
“Yes, Momma.”
“Who says?”
“The doctor.”
“Hmm,” her brows furrow. “What’s me sickness?”
“Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh,” her eyes search the ceiling. “Are you sick, Mickey?”
“No, Momma.”
“Good, good,” she closes her eyes and smiles, faintly. “Because I took it from you.”
“You took it from me, Momma?”
“Yes,” she says, very sure of it. “So you wouldn’t have it.”
“Thank you, Momma,” Mickey gently squeezes her brittle hand.
“You know, you’re a very good boy, Mickey?” she gently strokes Mickey’s hand in hers with her thumb.
“Thank you, Momma.”
She closes her eyes again for a moment, then opens them. “Mickey?”
“Yes?”
“What’s me sickness?”
“Alzheimer’s, Momma.”
“Oh, yes,” she smiles, then squints at the ceiling as if looking through a fog. “But I don’t remember forgetting.”
Mickey smiles. “I know, Momma.”
A distant gaze washes over her eyes.
“Do you feel sick, Momma?” Mickey worries.
She shakes her head, the thin pillow under her making crumpling noises.
“That’s good, Momma.”
She smiles and closes her eyes, once again, relaxing for a few moments.
“Mickey?” she opens her eyes.
“Yes, Momma?”
“Where are we?”
“We’re in the hospital, Momma.”
“Am I sick?’
“Yes, Momma.”
“With what?”
“Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh, yes,” she looks upwards again, her eyes drifting off into thought.
“What are you thinkin’, Momma?”
“I’m thinking…” the deep ridges on her forehead return. “I don’t want to forget you.”
Mickey squeezes her hand tighter. “It’s okay, Momma.”
“But right now…” her eyes dart side to side, searching for the words. “Right now… I love you.”
She turns her head to look at Mickey.
“I love you, too, Momma,” Mickey reaches over and rubs his thumb across her forehead with his other hand.
“You’re a good boy,” she says. “Do you know that, Mickey?”
“Thank you, Momma,” Mickey’s eyes begin to rim with tears.
“Why are you crying?” she asks, deeply concerned.
“Because you’re sick, Momma.”
“Am I dying?”
“Yes, Momma.”
“Who says?”
“The doctor, Momma.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Momma.”
She looks back up at the ceiling, curious. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ahh, yes,” there’s a glimpse of understanding. “Only God knows.”
A look of peace glows on her face as she closes her eyes again.
“Momma?”
“Yes?” she opens her eyes at Mickey.
“When you’re gone, will you still love me?”
“Of course,” she smiles a wide smile, a glitter of her former self. “Because you’ll still be the same Mickey.”
Mickey looks down at her hand squeezing his back, softly.
“You know, you’re a very good boy, Mickey?”
“Thank you, Momma.”
Her grip relaxes as she lets out an exhausted sigh, closing her heavy eyelids.
“Let’s sleep now?” she says, turning onto her side, weakly, facing away from Mickey. “You sleep at me back… If you want.”
Mickey crawls over the covers and wraps one protective arm over his mom’s side, burying his face in her graying scarlet hair. He pulls her closer, feeling her ribs rise and fall with shallow breaths, savoring her warmth and familiar scent, his eyes wide open, fighting off sleep, clasping her tighter, forbidding her fleeting moment of remembering to slip away.
Chapter 30: I Choose Violence
The black fabric of the Biker’s sleeve is so dark that even his own blood soaking through it looks as if it were only wet from rain. The bullet from Buck’s Beretta had entered the back of the meaty part of the Biker’s shoulder and exited through the front of it, carving through muscle, but not devastating enough as the Biker holds his heavy Magnum at the back of the Blinder’s neck with the same arm, wet, steady, unwavering.
“New deal, Number Three,” the Biker growls. “Tell me the locker number and I don’t kill you both.”
“You tell mans, fam, and we both dead niggas,” Buck says to the Blinder, his hands still raised, his own Beretta pressing against the back of his bucket hat.
“I’ll tell you what then,” the Biker menaces. “Tell me or I’ll whack your boy right now.”
“Okay,” the Blinder shrugs.
“What!” Buck drops his arms to his side.
“But if you do, I won’t tell you shit. That’s a promise, broski.”
“Oh, sweety,” the Biker hushes. “I can get a search team here in ten minutes to sweep the place. Or we can do it the easy way and you both walk.”
“Sure,” says the Blinder. “Maybe they can find it before the Jersey police show up askin’ questions. Or maybe the Feds? What ya think?”
The Biker snarls under his horned helmet.
“But I have a better idea,” the Blinder lowers the Beretta to his side. “I don’t trust you, broski. And I sure as shit don’t trust this fookin’ buckethead over here.” The Blinder pauses. “I say we fight for it.”
The Biker hesitates. A drop of blood falls from the cuff of his sleeve and splats on the hard floor.
“What’s the matter, Number Five?” the Blinder mocks. “You don’t think your kung fu can beat me muay Thai? Or you worried about Number Four’s karate?”
The Biker chuckles behind his helmet’s face-shield. “And how’s this supposed to work, sweety?”
“Easy,” the Blinder turns to face the Biker then backs away against a side wall, the Biker’s Magnum following his every move. “I go here. You go to that wall. Buckethead goes to the back wall. You unload your clip, take apart your strap, toss the parts here and there, and I’ll do the same after you. And after that, I’ll tell y’all the locker number that Number Two told me. That’s a promise.”
Buck turns around slowly to face the others, his brain racing.
The Biker lowers his Magnum, his wet arm heavy at his side.
“I’m down to make a deal, to be honest,” the Blinder says. “I just need me half, and you two can split the other half, or whatever. But I got a feelin’ that won’t happen. We all know the words. And once we all know the locker number, I got the feelin’ some of us won’t leave this room alive.”
Standing under the harsh glare of the overhead lights, the Biker turns his sights to Buck, then to the Blinder again, the proposition hanging heavy in the confined space, slowly feeling like an arena in each of their minds.
Without a word, the Biker swings out the barrel of his Magnum and lets its bullets fall into his hand missing its pinky finger. He backs up slowly towards the wall opposite the Blinder, never breaking his gaze at him. With each back step, the Biker tosses one bullet across the floor. One by one, bullets clink and tumble across cement in different directions.
Buck feels like his head is spinning, turning to the Blinder, then to the Biker, then back to the Blinder.
The Blinder slides out the magazine from the Beretta and starts popping out its bullets with his thumb, each pinging on the hard floor until there’s none left to pop out.
Mandem is crazy, Buck thinks to himself as he backs up against the unit’s back wall behind him.
With nimble fingers, the Biker disassembles his Magnum easily, throwing the Laughing Buddha handle to his right, the nozzle to his left, the barrel dropping at his feet. Silver and wood scrape across the floor then clamor against the base of concrete walls.
The Blinder turns the Beretta over in his hands and presses a lever, releasing a firing pin block with a satisfying click before it pings onto the floor. Pushing the gun’s slide lock forward with a metallic rasp, the Blinder strips the Beretta to its skeleton, flinging its pieces around the room.
As the pieces settle, scattered on the floor, a sudden silence consumes the space, dense, filling every corner, every crevice, every crack in the cold storage unit.
“The locker number that Number Two told me is…1…5…5…5…” the Blinder says slowly. Each number spoken seems to boom inside the constricted space before returning to its thick silence.
Suddenly, a cat’s meow slices through the stillness—a black cat with a red collar sitting at the entrance of the unit next to a broken padlock and a tire iron lying on its side., but the three pay it no attention as they eye each other down with searing stares behind their masks.
Buck’s heart starts pounding like a war drum, cold sweat trickling down his spine. He swallows hard, tasting the metallic tang of adrenaline on his tongue.
The Biker turns his back to the others and slides the straps of his black backpack off his shoulders and lays it on the floor against the wall. Inside it, only a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, handcuffs and its keys, a phone and an NYPD police badge. Then he begins rolling his neck to the sound of soft cracking of joints, then pulls one arm across his chest, and then the other.
Buck also turns to face the wall behind him. He cracks his knuckles on both hands, bends his knees slightly, then throws a series of punches through the air, inches away from striking the wall, the sleeves of his coat rustling through the silence with each weighted punch.
The Blinder presses his palms together by his forehead, his eyes half-closed in meditation behind his thick eyepieces, his breaths deep and measured. He bends down at his waist, his legs straight, and presses his chest flat against his massive thighs.
The cat stretches, too, arching its back high over its head and tail.
Straightening his form, legs together, the Biker pushes his fist against his palm, then breaks into an eagle style kung fu tao—a dance of primal movements embodying the spirit the eagle—a predator of precision and sudden explosiveness. The Biker’s hands unfold, fingers splayed and curled inwards, like an eagle’s sharp talons. He shifts his weight forward then side to side, like an eagle soaring and swooping in the sky.
The Blinder turns to face the wall and bounces on his feet, feeling the rhythm of his pulse through his veins. He throws a vicious muay Thai swing kick into the air, spinning him around full circle, his leg whistling through the silence. He launches into a series of mock elbows, knees, hooks and uppercuts, his sharp, abrupt movements a stark contrast to the Biker’s fluid style.
Completing his kung fu tao, the Biker rises up erect, facing the wall. Pressing his fist against his palm again, he slowly turns to face the others.
Like a wave around the perimeter of the room, Buck turns next, then the Blinder, and even the cat, all turning to face the center of the unit.
And then the silence becomes suffocating.
Like an eagle poised on the brink of flight, the Biker drops into his fighting stance, arms stretched wide, fingers curved, feet planted firmly, as if ready to launch into the wind. His eyes, cold and watchful under his helmet, lock onto Buck and the Blinder like an eagle stalking its prey.
The Blinder unravels into his muay Thai stance, bending his knees and shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, lifting his hands to his face—his lead hand open, the other clenched into a white-knuckled fist drawn close to his body, primed to deliver devastating blows.
Buck enters his Shotokan karate stance, his feet spread shoulder-width apart, one slightly forward, his knees slightly bent, a fist raised to guard his torso, the other raised higher to guard his face.
Their eyes dart back and forth behind their masks, reading each other’s stances, every micro movement, even the rise and fall of their chests to gauge each other’s fear or courage.
The charged silence amplifies the slightest sounds—the brush of fabric against skin, the gentle scrape of a foot against the cement floor.
The Biker eyes down the Blinder. The Blinder eyes down the Biker. Buck eyes down the both of them.
Then, suddenly, the silence is shattered by the cat shrieking out a piercing wail like the horn before a battle, but just as the Biker and the Blinder dig their soles into the floor to spring into the center of the battleground, Buck defies gravity with a leap across the unit. His head almost grazes the ceiling as he lands at the mouth of the entrance beside his discarded tire iron—the cat skittering out of his way. He slams the metal door shut and slides the tire iron through the steel loops mounted to the door and cement floor, locking the Biker and the Blinder inside.
“Fookin’ buckethead,” the Blinder whispers to himself. Then, in a spark, the Biker is upon him so quickly that the Blinder feels as if he teleported across the unit to meet him.
The Biker’s rapid-fire strikes are a fleeting blur of motion, forcing the Blinder to work pointedly on defence, but every raise of his forearms and knees to block the Biker’s attacks are all too late—the Biker’s blows striking the Blinder’s body before any block technique can meet them.
The curled fingertips of the Biker’s eagle talon hand claws into the side of the Blinder’s head. A sweeping eagle style kick thrashes into the Blinder’s gut, but the Blinder’s body, hardened by thousands of hooks to his head, elbows to his chest, swing kicks to his sides, and knees to his stomach, year after year in the Third Chamber, absorbs every one of the Biker’s blows, unscathed.
The Blinder side-steps in a wide arc around the Biker while weathering the storm of blows and takes control of the center of the floor.
Finally, the Blinder counters with a deadly swing kick aimed at the Biker’s head, but the Biker’s uncanny speed keeps him one step ahead. He ducks and attacks simultaneously with an unending flurry of strikes from different angles in a single instant, as if existing in multiple places at once, his quickness defying reality itself.
But the Blinder stands his ground, his body a fortress, taking every blow raining down on him, the pain only visible in his eyes behind his mask but never showing on his hardened muscles and bones.
Blow after landing blow, the Blinder studies the patterns in the Biker’s ceaseless barrage of attacks, then releases a violent counter strike—not at the Biker, but where he anticipates the Biker will be.
Suddenly, the Blinder’s boot crushes into the Biker’s chest, launching him backwards, backpedaling, gasping for air.
Still in shock, the Biker watches the Blinder charge into him, launching catastrophic punches, elbows, kicks and knees in a whirlwind of violence. The Biker dodges and weaves, his agile body moving with the grace of an eagle, but the Biker studies the patterns of his movements once again and swings a devastating left hook through the air, his eyes no longer locked onto the present, but aiming into the future.
The Blinder’s knuckles ravage into the side of the Biker’s helmeted head with a brutal force blasting a thunderous echo inside the unit and sending the Biker spinning, his body, once a blur of motion, now suspended in an awkward display of limbs scrambling for balance. The Biker’s world tilts, and then he falls, crashing into the cement floor in a graceless heap.
The deafening silence returns as the Blinder continues bouncing on his feet, his hands still raised to fight, looking down at the Biker lying there on the ground, disoriented, the echo of the wrecking blow still ringing in his ears, the taste of blood and defeat turning sour in his mouth.
With a painful grunt, the Biker pushes against the hard ground, his arms trembling, then buckles under him as his chest smacks back onto the cement. Turning his head, the Biker shoots a hateful glare at the Blinder, still bouncing in his muay Thai stance. The Blinder shakes his head side to side at the Biker—a merciful warning to give up.
But the Biker’s pride swells inside him, overpowering the dizziness and lingering tremors. Inch by inch, he rises, his body protesting, but still, he climbs back up to his feet, his knees shaking under his weight.
The Blinder, never breaking his gaze, never lowering his guard, bounces on his feet and waits for the Biker to gather himself, still unsure if he is doing the right thing, or the dumb ass thing.
The Biker, his black suit now smeared with dust, sweat and blood, slowly straightens his hunched back. He opens his arms wide, closes his eyes, then brings in his open palms scooping air towards his helmeted face as he draws in a deep breath. And then his posture shifts—his eagle-like grace giving way to a different form—something rawer, even more primal. Then his back arches, arms spreading out like the wings of a larger animal, fingers grasping an invisible force, mimicking the claws of a dragon, as if he was summoning the celestial beast itself. His legs turn strong and rooted to the ground, as if holding up a dragon's enormous bulk.
Slowly, the Biker turns his head, neck extended, and locks his eyes onto the Blinder with a predatory stare. A soft growl bubbles up from the depths of his chest, and with a fierce roar, the Biker whips forward at the Blinder, every fiber in his body charged with a dragon’s electrifying energy, setting his nerves ablaze.
Impossibly quick, the Biker releases a Dragon Ascends to Heaven technique, his body coiling then uncoiling like a dragon soaring into the sky, giving the Blinder only a split second to brace himself before he’s swallowed up into a swirling vortex of swift attacks, the air crackling with the force of the Biker’s blows. Once again, the Blinder’s defences are helpless against the Biker’s dazzling speed and surgical precision.
But this time, the Biker chooses different targets on the Blinder’s body. His dragon claw fist strikes the left side of the Blinder’s neck, sending a shudder down the left side of his body, his left arm going numb and limp, dropping at his side.
The Blinder fires a savage counter punch with his good arm to where he predicts the Biker will be, but the Biker’s dragon style kung fu, far more allusive, cripples the Blinder’s senses, as if trying to predict the free flowing motion of a serpentine dragon carried by a chaotic wind, and his fist swooshes harmlessly through the air.
In a blink, the Biker hunkers down behind the Blinder, oblivious, and in a flicker of movement, the Biker’s leg curls upwards, heel close to his thigh, then lashes out a Dragon’s Tail Whip sweep technique, driving his heel into the tendons at the back of the Blinder’s knee, who buckles under the sudden, unexpected pain.
Regaining balance, the Blinder spins around and throws a wild left hook hitting nothing. Then the Biker is behind him again, his body twisting like a spring, his right arm coiled back, his hand open, fingers slightly curved, then uncoils a Dragon Palm Strike technique into the Blinder’s lower spine, sending shockwaves up and down his body as he reels forward, grabbing onto a steel support beam to keep himself up.
The Blinder snaps himself around to face the Biker who crouches low, then like a flash of lightning, the Biker spins on one foot and whips his other around in a blinding circle. Too fast for any human eye to follow, his heel drives into the Blinder’s solar plexus at the center of his torso, unprotected by the rock-hard muscles on his chest, stomach and sides. The Blinder’s ribcage caves in, robbing him of his breaths. He coughs up blood into the mouthguard of his mask that traps it in. His back slams into a wall then slides down until his ass thumps onto the cold floor.
The Blinder tries to push himself up by his one able arm, but slides back down the wall, his vision dimming, the air stolen from his lungs.
Looking up, he sees the Biker standing over him, casually, no longer in his dragon style stance. The Biker takes three steps back and shakes his finger side to side, mocking the Blinder’s earlier warning to give up.
Desperate, the Blinder shifts his shaky gaze up over his shoulder and sees a metal fuse box mounted to the concrete wall, a conduit cable running up from it and across the ceiling into the two rows of fluorescent lights above.
With his final ounce of strength, he launches up, faster than the Biker has ever seen him move. Before the Biker can realize what’s to come, the Blinder snags the cable and rips it off its wall brackets, snapping it from the fuse box, plunging the room into pitch darkness. Only the sound of bracket screws clattering on cement fills the sudden abyss of blackness, engulfing everything.
To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 10: In the Hearts of Hard Men, anywhere you get your podcasts. To learn more about the podcast, visit our website at fivedeadlyrebels.com. This has been a DimensionGate production.
