The elevator rose. ‘Will this floor man slice this cube pie left or right?’

‘From his right, my left. I slice left, snuggled in, relax, he gets the first shot while rock on this platform—no, I don’t think so, Hot Shot.’

The floor stopped, rocked, the door sliding open, his weapon already shit sighted [1] on the door crack. The door opened an inch and he saw desert khaki BDUs and just had to fire, right into the pelvis. The short, muscle man dropped to his ass, his 9MM blued SIG admirably drawn and presented but merely pointed to the floor, where it fired, skipping the round off the marble and into Drake’s shin bone.

The barrel was rising as blood was soaking that never again to be used groin. Drake gritted teeth, calmed in the eye of the storm, and found no need to raise his muzzle for his second shot, as the proud, ‘put a boot in your Middle Eastern ass,’ WOT veteran, who was probably his age, snarled, knowing he was had, “Not today,” popped the fifth round, “Slick,” and the eyes remarkably dropped out of their sockets, both of them.

Drake holstered, drew his ankle gun, held the door as it tried to close, and slunk out like a puma, the cat he thought most resembled himself in action. He saw no one as he stooped to check the belt. He knew better than to use enemy weapons. These automatics were all palm coded to the dedicated user. ‘But, what if some prick—some shithead adjuster holed up in the elevator, ha, Slick?’

‘That’s right, a man after my own heart—just a half a beat behind the curve.’

He patted the fallen foe on the chest where the eyes dangled towards, a barrel chest, and noticed a really fine tactical knife, a Thai Commando knife, rigged on the body armor over the heart for a downward true cross draw. He broke protocol in case the ghost of his foe was still nearby, “Off to your final reward with wings, my friend. Thank you for the knife. I will wield it with pride. Oh my, and the breaching charge on your belt, here. Sir, you deserved better than to have that shithead ginger fucking up two floors below. I respect this is your detail and promise to put the rest on board the Afterlife Express to attend you in style.”

The jacket came off as he velcro rigged the knife over his heart. He saw on the vest, under the knife, this man’s name, “Olsten,” and saluted him, “Olsten, sir—see you for drinks some day should we both earn that final reward.”

He donned the suit jacket and drew the knife, five inches of vest-cutting blued steel come to an armor-piercing point, that would defeat any vest without a ceramic plate. Re sheathing, the door charge he placed in his left hand then set down his ankle gun. The hip gun was unsuppressed, that pocketed, and reloaded. The ankle gun was pocketed in the left suit pocket. It was unconventional, even gay in a way. But there were two autos, 34 rounds, waiting for him in the hands of the suite man and the door man.

Gun and charge in hand he rounded the corner and saw the door yawning there, two oak panel, brass banded—out of a fantasy novel—double doors, a camera over top. ‘They have me in their sights. In case one had a long gun he walked quickly down the side wall, put shoulder to frame, and extended his left hand to place the breaching charge, then recalled that he had to activate it with two hands, drew it back, to the thunder of high brass, double-ot buck shot ripping through the door where his left hand had just been.

More thunder roared, showering him with splinters and ripping a small chunk—a chink really—out of his left shoulder. Splinters stung his face as he activated the breach charge, counted five, and tossed it through gaping hole, where it thundered on seven. His eyes widened as he recalled three seconds earlier that he was going to count to six.

The door to his back, ten paces back, beckoned as some moaning and bitching came from within, speaking of two wounded men. Switching pistol to left hand and sliding back along the wall towards the door, he caught movement and fired a round, bringing two mag dumps from inside the room. The poorly placed, frantic fire zinging down the hall as he sunk into the door alcove, drew his knife in true, flipped it, and used it to wreck the old dry wood door-frame at the lock in one easy stab, glide and crack. He shouldered in like on the Old Job, smearing blood on the door, and left it open behind him.

In bed was some sweet sissy, a homo if he ever saw one, ‘God save his shagged soul,’ tied up with cuffs and the red ball in his face strapped mouth—the whole sick deal. Drake rushed to him, “Hey, Slick, help’s on the way. Make haste, and do duck, out the door and to the right. Cutting the ankle bonds with the knife, he shewed the kid off the bed as he spied the door to the main suite where the door man and suite man were held up.

The guy cried, and needed no encouragement to run for his life, out the door and down the hall, followed by shotgun blasts, and the dropping of his body.

‘Guys, that’s a faɡɡot to far,’ whispered Drake as he quick sneaked the door to the main suite, dropped to a knee, and saw the two burned, bleeding and stunned goons in shredded suits peering out the door at their work, which their dumb asses had hoped was him. A voice from his left, virtually on top of him from behind a desk, shouted, “He’s in!”

‘My eyes must be going on that side—didn’t even see the fat bastard.’

He fired two double taps at the head of the shot gun man, one hitting the door frame, one hitting his vest, one winging his already bleeding arm, and the other in the neck.

The other prick was racking a clip as Drake dove behind the desk he had entered by, dropping his gun and stabbing the fat bastard in the chest.

“Slick, I see we keep the same hours, he snarled,” as the man tried to call out but gurgled through a seeping lung pipe. The knife was in, controlling the primary, whose man was stalking close, firing two rounds through the desk, “You won’t even try and save your meal ticket, Slick? Olsten would be dissappointed.”

Two more rounds skipped off the floor, the second catching his boot tread. It was time. He drew his pocket in the left. Drake stood, with all of his might turning the quivering boss with the knife to shield his knife hand as the suite man mag dumped into the back of the fat, sweater-wearing nerd who had thought he was beyond adjustment.

The suite man’s 9mm ran empty.

Drake dropped the fat bastard, presented the knife hand forearm over the ice pick as a firing table, rested his elbow there, sighted as the suite man raised his empty hands in surrender, and put one in the throat. The man dropped in a panicked gurgle, groveling to all the devils that swam up from hell to take cowards to their just deserve.

He sheathed the knife, switch the backup gun to his right hand and went about stacking weapons in case any other party arrived, making a mental note to return for his main gun.

“I’d close the door but you all wrecked it,” he spoke to the dying men as he placed their weapons behind the boss’s desk with his main gun.

“Something smells good, and its not you screw-ups.”

Drake followed the smell of bacon and eggs, “You all were going to have breakfast after you whacked me on that inside tip?”

To the deep left, for this was a big suite, just past a small dining table, was a serving door, like in a diner. He walked absently towards it, holding his weapon off the hip, around the dining room table as the men bled out to his right—‘the boss is done, what a gusher.’

‘The poor cook. I’ll holster up and go badge out to reassure her. Holster up,’ thought he, as he walked towards the kitchen door and heard the sizzle of bacon on the grill.

“Bam—slam,” and with a shriek of female fury he was vaulted back over the table, his back jacked, as a big—BIG—black woman with a purple tiger-stripe wig fell on him, a frying pan in her right hand. They both went head over heels to the floor, she somehow landing on top. She sat up in a mount and smashed down with two hands on the cast iron pan. As he reached for his gun, and found it, sliding his head to the side, his left ear was burned. The woman in her pink flamingo smock, as big as a table cloth, cried “Da bess boss eva you done kilt, BITCH,” and rose up with another two-handed stroke of the pan that could not miss. [2]

At the apex of her stroke, he got his pistol on line, put one in the belly, that did nothing, one in the enormous left breast that did less, one in the neck that only grazed fat as her eyes lit and she came for the kill, and one between those crazy green eyes.

His gun empty, Drake slid out as she fell forward having no desire to be caught under all of that.

To be concluded in:

#7 The Haul

#8 The Hook

#9 The Look

To be published in the Graphomaniac Archive #3 in January 2027, and in print whenever a publisher is found.

1.) Drake hates sighting along a suppressor and calls it a shit sight, his groupings usually suffering on the vertical plane.

2.) The woman this character is based on cooked numerous meals for the author in 2020-21 in Portland, and survived 4 rounds from a close range .45 APC attack, stomping the gunman. I examined the stapled holes, all through and through fat shots, as she said, “good luck catching my fat ass center mass!”