I absorbed the ten-foot fall with bent legs, and the son was so surprised to see someone jump off the tower that, even slightly shocked by the drop, I still had a second’s head start on shooting him. Three shots – one a miss, one a hit to the arm, one to the stomach – and I was off and running. I sprinted through the tall grass, veered onto the path after thirty yards or so, and kept up the high rate of speed to the parking lot. I allowed myself a breather to refill at the blue barrels, swatted half a dozen mosquitoes, and retreated to the safety of my car after realizing I had other places to be and couldn’t kill them all.
There was a row of “Reserved for uSoak contestants” parking spaces in the Bay Beach Amusement Park lot. I took one at the far end. The rest of the row of thirty was half full. Oh joy. And that didn’t even take into account multiple passengers in those cars, or the contestants who didn’t park in this row. On second thought…I pulled out, found a different space not quite so conspicuous, and parked there.
Opsec, learn it, live it, love it.
I rotated the Pulse Master so it hung under the satchel on my right side and I wandered with an affected aimlessness through the rivers of people shuffling along the baking pavement. The air was full of voices, the sounds of machinery, circus music, and the smell of food. The cliché about being alone in a crowd never seemed so apt. I enjoyed it.
The Tilt-A-Whirl was a red and yellow ride on a platform taller than me, hollow metal eggs containing seats that spun as they rotated around the platform. Why people paid money to get nauseated would never make sense to me. I elbowed way up to attendant standing in front of line. He looked me up and down and said “Back of the line.”
I patted my satchel and lifted the front to show him what was slung beneath. He smirked and said “Helicopters. Have a nice day.” I glanced around saw metal helicopters on spokes rising and falling as they spun slowly around a central post a few dozen yards away.
Water fell to the ground as I stepped out of the crowd, and I pulled the Triple Shot from my bag, whirling on my heel to aim back into the sea of people. Someone had a blue water gun pointed in my vague direction, and they seemed shocked to see my pistol coming towards them. They took too long to switch aims, and I snapped a long burst of water off their sternum, then whipped my arm around to see someone with an absolutely monstrously large double-barreled water gun on a sling moving towards the crowd. I side-stepped as waves of water drenched the people behind me, and the cannon was so large he took too long to swing it in my direction. Press, press, press, and that fight was over, an inverted triangle on his shirt, the points formed by plate-sized soaked patches expanding as they wicked their way through the fabric.
I sprinted for the helicopter ride, didn’t bother standing in line, and got another “clue” from the operator. “Slides.”
I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the playground equipment. That’d just be too easy, and not out-of-the-ordinary at all.
A set of fifty foot high – if not taller – blue slides stood near the lake’s edge. Even this far back, I could see them. A staircase was mounted along the side, and the “riders” slid down the sun-baked incline on gunnysacks. I stalked towards the equipment, planning my possible assault. It wouldn’t be easy, not with the narrow staircase as my only way up or down.
Well, not the only way DOWN.
The landing zone at the bottom of the slides was concrete, polished smooth by thousands of customers, fenced in with chain link so no one went sailing off into the wild blue yonder.
Hair went up on the back of my neck as I approached the line. The stream of people wound all the way down the steps, and well down the concrete path. I nonchalantly scratched my back with my thumb and turned to eye the line like I was just another impatient customer.
Two guys and a girl – all about my age – were moving up through the line slowly, keeping an eye on me.
Busted.
I bolted forward, pushing through the crowd to a chorus of surprised exclamations, and pressed myself along the chain link wall as I sprinted up the staircase. I was glad I’d picked small guns – the people behind me had a couple of behemoths that were hard to carry and hard to maneuver.
I ignored the angry complaints as I moved up the line, taking the steps two at a time. At the top I simply said “You-Soak?”
The operator rolled his eyes. “You couldn’t have waited in line like everyone else?”
“Yeah,” the person behind me said. “Nice manners. What’s your problem?”
“No, I couldn’t wait,” I told him. “Code, clue, whatever?”
“Pavilion number one, east side.”
“Where’s that?” I looked back down the line. The three chasing me were coming closer, more hesitant than I to simply force their way up the line.
The attendant extended an arm, pointing to a green and white building on the far side of the park
“Thanks,” I said, and grabbed a piece of burlap.
“Hey, no free – “
By that time I was a quarter of the way down the slide, having dove down the first lane on my stomach. The whole journey took a scant handful of seconds. I had ample time to consider why it was everyone I’d watched had slid down in a sitting position instead of a dive.
It was a good thing I’d worn a long-sleeved shirt today. As it was the bumping, skidding stop merely hurt like hell and bruised my forearms instead of shredding them. I staggered to my feet and sprinted out of the enclosure, juking around a young mother and hurdling her toddler.
More shouted complaints, and I sprinted across the wide grass fairway, ignoring all behind me. The three people who’d been stalking me were stuck in the crowd, and nobody who had a complaint against me had a good enough description to call security. Home free.
To my left was a small concrete war memorial, and beyond that more concrete paths, dropping down to a wide beach. People played catch on the sands, sat around fire pits, and a stereo played a recent rap hit. Ahead, a dock jutted from the mainland, over the beach, far out into the water, small paddle boats moored to it, the kind you pedal with your feet. Good idea for touring, most people wouldn’t make it very far. Glancing ahead and back, I saw similar docks spaced every fifty yards or so along the water’s edge. This one was the only one with boats, the rest were probably for fishing. As I watched, one of boats was unlocked from the dock, and two people got in. The attendant passed them paddles and they started rowing out into the bay. Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow.
After I win this thing.
My lungs were heaving as I neared the pavilion. I dodged around playground equipment, and slowed as I neared it. White brick building, green shingle roof, two open air covered areas, one on both sides, housed picnic tables and benches. The front of the building had three doors “Men,” “Women,” and “Equipment.”
Pulse Master up, swept through the covered picnic area on the right, weaving between the metal tables. If there was anyone around here, they could probably hear me breathing. From, like, thirty feet away.
There was someone around here, and he strafed out from the corner of the main building. He wasn’t shooting right away and that was his mistake.
He gave me time.
Surrounded by picnic tables in the closing darkness of dusk, there weren’t a lot of moves for me to make. All avenues were channeled, no chance for a free run. All except for one direction: Up.
I jumped forward, boots clanging on a metal tabletop, and he was so startled at my running towards him he looked up for just a second before bringing his soaker to bear on me. I snapped a long burst off his collarbone, and jumped off the table, out from under the pavilion, onto the grass behind the building. Water lanced past, and I twisted my forward run into a sideways strafe, and emptied the rest of the pressure chamber into a sweeping stream against the back of the building, catching two more shooters.
The pump on the Pulse Master squeaked as I walked towards the back of the building. Someone had chalked a telephone number onto the white brick. I memorized it, let the gun fall on its sling, and ducked into the women’s restroom at the front of the building.
There was a faint but harsh caged light set in the ceiling, and there was toilet paper all over. The walls were covered in graffiti. Women’s restrooms are ALWAYS in worse states than Mens’. Always. I gingerly moved the heavy, overflowing trash can in front of the door, and tried the overhead fan. Nothing. Figures.
I leaned against what looked like a slightly less dirty spot on the protruding porcelain sink and punched the number into my phone, listened to my heart pound in my ears, drowning out the sound of the ringing. My clothing stuck to me with sweat, and I felt a lethargy creeping up due to the exertion and the still air.
The voice on the other end said “Occupy and defend Renard Island. The next telephone number is on the dock, and will activate at nine.”
Renard Island?
The GPS map on my phone showed a pushpin stuck in a kidney-shaped island just off the coast, a few dozen yards from this shore.
I pushed the bathroom door open and peeked out. Nobody.
It appeared that I had been granted a few moments rest.
I walked across the green to the edge of the rocks leading down to the beach. People were still sitting around fires, drinking, talking, someone even had a guitar at one of the little gatherings.
I fished a cylinder out of my bag and held it up to my eye. The Vortex Optics Solo range-finder was blurry at first, but I dialed it in on the island. The range-finder said the island was several hundred meters away. A rocky, near vertical “beach” surrounded a wide, grassy mainland. Trees grew in stands along its ridge, and off on the left side, I spied a wooden dock with halogen spotlights. It glowed like a beacon in the near-dark. Already there were several boats tied at the wooden moor.
Oh yeah, this was going to be lots of fun.
Not.
