The Lands of the Rising Sun

The Million Unit Man

The girls stuck in a daze continued dancing through the room. I counted four guards total, armed with rifles. Ug'vesh was posted on a throne; the yellowish haze of lights silhouetted his figure to the window. The guard behind us pushed Snake and I forward. "Kneel," Ug'vesh commanded. We weren't in a position to argue so we obliged. I was a little disappointed by the decoration of the room. I expected to see skulls and other caliginous objects lining the room but the room was relatively empty except for the graffiti on the walls, which mainly consisted of the two red arrows through a circle, the same symbol we saw earlier. "Search them."

The guards surrounded us tearing through our clothes. They ripped the blow pipe and darts from my pockets; I looked over at Snake, the two guards each had handfuls of the spoils from the poker game. I narrowed my eyes at him to a confused look and he shrugged. The guards brought everything over to a pile of random assortments. "Beat them." The guards circled us and began beating us with their guns and shoving us to the ground. Ug'vesh laughed. "Stop." The guards stopped and took two steps back. "Why are you here?" he asked. I wasn't in the loop of this whole plan Black Jack had so I didn't see a reason to lie. "To... kidnap you," I managed to spit out. Ug'vesh laughed louder this time. "What problems do you have with me?"

"Personally none... but for them townspeople down the way they seem to have a dislikin' for you."

"Thirty?"

"Yeah that's the one."

"Don't be a hero," Ug'vesh said as he laid back on his throne. "Beat them again."

The guards surrounded us again and I braced myself. I heard two gagging noises and a warm splatter on my back. The guards in front of Snake and I began to raise their weapons. We didn't hesitate; we jumped up landing a punch to each of the guards. They landed flat on their backs. Black Jack was right behind us with a kill shot. He stabbed furiously through each of their temples spraying blood across the floor. The girls in the room ducked behind Ug'vesh's throne. Ug'vesh stood up revealing the tattoos under his cloak running from under his ears down to his waist. "You will never make it out of here," he said. "Trust me I think we will," I said walking up to him. I sat him back down in his throne with a jab to the nose.

Black Jack stuck his spear to his neck. Ug'vesh looked the blade up to Black Jack's eyes and spat right on his chest, "Curse you devils." Black Jack's hands trembled as he tried to fight back the urge to drive the spear through his neck. "Easy now buddy, we need him alive," I said. Snake and I gathered some clothes and rifles from the dead guards. Not my style but the ripped jean jackets were growing on me. Black Jack looked back at us searching through the dead men. "Do you two have no respect?" he asked. I looked at him confused, "You're the one that killed 'em," I said.

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh and what do you mean? You mean to tell me that a man can go through life killin' as many motherfuckers that he wants," I said nudging one of the dead men's heads with my foot, "but we draw the line when we take from the men we kill? Is that what separates man from beast?"

"Goddammit, whatever how do you wanna get him out of here?"

"We'll just shoot him with one of them darts and then..." I walked over to the window that filled the wall behind the throne and opened part of it. I saw groups of flashlights pacing back and forth through the field. A couple of men occupied the truck mounted with a machine gun in front of the building. "All we gotta do is kill these motherfuckers on this truck and hightail it outta here," I said. "Easy," Black Jack said. "All right Snake shoot 'em with one of them-" Snake had already beaten me to the punch, when I turned around Ug'vesh was slumped in his throne with a wide-open mouth.