Nope!, I thought when the dragon burst into the air. I ran off the building in a ‘which came first’ scenario. I’d like to think I delayed long enough to secure my handbrake to the zip-line, but it all happened in a blur.

Our line was anchored to an adjacent parking garage, and we were only descending a single level. But once I was out over the seven-story potential fall to the street without a backup tether in place, I had to admit, the seven degree angle of our line might have been a bit ambitious.

I dangled from a triangular handle that seemed more frail and precarious than I recalled discussing during our preparations. We hadn’t at all talked about safe words but apparently mine was, “Shit-shit-shit-shit.” Or maybe it was a mantra, but it didn’t seem to affect my speed, which was much too fast.

My vision fled as the wind folded my lapel over my face. I tried to turn by kicking vigorously, but I can see how someone else might have thought I was bicycling across. I had to slow down, though. I needed to brake, or else my ‘sticking the landing’ was going to make my brake a grammatical error.

I shifted my weight to one arm and wrapped my opposite hand around a lever, then squeezed. A dull abrasive sound rose above the wind’s howl, my collar finally laying back down.

Then, the tension became altogether different, the tension in my line ceasing to exist. I plummeted, again bicycling, to my discredit. My death grip kept me fastened to the line, where my zipping became a swinging. Damn, I missed that seven-degree slope now.

I was flung through an opening on a floor below my original destination—a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette bunting me off its windshield. I had once again given Sir Death the bird, but as I stared across the car’s cherry red hood, darkness creeping in on my vision, I could think only one thing—classic.

When I awoke, it sounded like a tiny man was in my head banging on a pipe with a wrench. It was dark in...wherever I was, but the little guy was not letting me get any sleep. The couch under me felt remarkably like the one in my office. Smelled like it too. And if it felt like one and smelt like one, it damn well better not be anything else.

I stood, then thrust my arms out as a ship’s deck moved beneath me—only, I knew my couch wasn’t off dry land. They better hope it’s not, in any case. No, this was the work of an addled mind. I had apparently stopped rather abruptly. Come to think of it...maybe that red coloring hadn’t adorned that car before I arrived.

I reached up to find a laceration in a mask’s place—a mark that ran from the bridge of my nose-down and across my cheek. Ah!, I winced, the wound stinging.

“Promo?” asked a girl from nearby.

“I’m fine, Darla.”

A lamp clicked on, its dull light revealing a bookish girl laying sideways in a recliner, her legs hooking over the opposite arm as she retrieved her square-framed glasses from the lamp’s table. A green boggin covered her head, which she pulled down once her glasses were in place. “How are you feeling?”

My shirt had apparently been removed. And my trousers. But at least they left me my small clothes. I lifted my arms to spy the bandaging that wrapped around my torso. “None the worse for wear, it seems. How’s everyone el—”

“They’re fine,” Darla replied, touching her glasses. “Ameelio said to make sure you focus on getting better before you go checking on everyone else.”

I cracked a smile and scrubbed the back of my head. Maybe a little rest is in order, I thought, placing my hands on my hips as I surveyed my office. Truth be told, it was more of a sitting room—its sole window only looking out into another interior locale. The walls were cold concrete, creating a rather homely space saved only by a burgundy and ash gray area rug.

I pinched my chin, while clasping my elbow with the other hand. ‘Garish’ I mused. Ameelio wouldn’t know garish if he went swimming fifteen-pounds of gold chain dangling around his neck.

Darla stared as she bit on her thumbnail, her gaze somewhere below contact with my eyes. I looked down to my teal boxers and a gap where my lower abs spanned the space between my waistband and my bandages. Is she staring at my stomach or...

“Oh, sorry,” she replied, touching her glasses. “I was someplace else.”

“Maybe. I should get dressed.”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that.” She sighed.

“You know the rules, Darla. If you’ve got something on your mind, out with it.”

“But Ameelio said—”

“Just who’s running this place anyhow? Was I relieved sometime during my nap?”

Darla drew in a breath, then sighed again as she turned her fiddling to the hem of her shirt. “It’s about the job...about the bomb.”

I crossed my arms and shook my head. “I caught a glimpse of that explosion as I fell. I’m sure there were still injuries—deaths even. But can you imagine how many of them would have perished if we hadn’t made that announcement? What are the odds?” I shrugged. “I wish I could say saving all of those lives was part of the plan, but I’ll settle for a happy coincidence.”

“What was that thing? Some kind of aerial strike? It was too dark for any of us to see.”

“Would you believe me if I told you it was a dragon?”

Darla’s brows knitted together. “Is that some kind of new tech? I’m not familiar with it.”

I shook my head. “No, Darla. I’m referring to the ‘OG’ model of the carnivore variety.”

“This is serious, Prometheus. Whatever that thing was...it may be paramount in getting the heat off our back.”

“We’re not going to climb to the top of any ‘most wanted’ lists by setting a hospital on fire and sending a fake bomb threat.”

“No, but we might since they’re giving us credit for a bombing.”

“Uh, what?”

“Yeah. It’s all over the news. It’s all any of them are talking about. Apparently, Prometheus and his band of good-for-nothings blew up St. Peters Memorial Hospital last night and they’re still tallying our death count.”

“Oh. That’s uh... Hmm. Unexpected.”

Darla pulled her hand back into her shirtsleeve as she sniffled, then pressed the doubled over sleeve against the underside of her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking.

I padded the jacket I wasn’t wearing, then doubled back to a table that abutted my couch. I pulled out a drawer there and withdrew a folded handkerchief from a stack before ferrying it back over to her. “It’s alright. Our public opinion is going to take a hit. But, we did want people to take us seriously, so there’s that.”

“They’re saying... They said we targeted the sick and elderly. Said we were only attacking people that couldn’t defend themselves. Everyone’s going to hate us now.” She openly cried, but there was something dignified about a woman crying into a man’s handkerchief.

This line of work was high drama, not high art. People were always going to get hurt. Physically and emotionally. And I’m going to need a great many more handkerchiefs before we make any difference at all.

With her legs hooked over the chair arm, it didn’t take much to stoop and replace the rest with my forearm as I pulled her arched back into my other and lifted her. The souls of her heavy boots clicked together as she lulled against my chest.

I turned and sat in the chair, then took off her glasses, where she averted her gaze. I pulled her head back against my chest and felt her fingertip brushing at my collarbone as I reached to turn out the light.

“But I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” she said.

Cli-click.

“You are,” I replied. “I was chilly. Now, I have a blanket. Thanks for that.”