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PREVIOUS (PART 7)

Doug stumbled out of the apartment and down the front steps. When he regained his balance, he found himself face to face with a stern looking young woman in a black suit. She grabbed him by his coat collar. “And where are you going?”
“I’m just… uh…”
Standing a number of inches shorter, she pulled Doug down to eye-level. “Did you happen to see a man in there who looks to spend a little too much time working on his hair? Goes by the name of Bryce?”
Doug had long ago been told by Bryce to never tell any woman – especially an angry-looking woman – where he is. “No, I never saw such a person.”
She stared at Doug for a moment. He just wasn’t a great liar. “Speaking of hair, you might want to invest in a comb yourself.”
Doug ran his hand through his matted black hair. “It’s been a busy day.”
She shoved Doug away, but she ended up being knocked back from the effort more than him. “Now tell me where Bryce is before I have to hurt you.”
The women looking for Bryce usually only threatened Bryce with violence. “I know Bryce can kinda be a jerk, so it’s probably better you just forget about him.”
She pulled out a knife and pointed it at Doug’s face. “I’ll forget him when he’s dead. Now tell me where he is before I take one of your eyes.”
“Aren’t you taking this way too seriously?”
She sneered. “I don’t think you understand the kind of people Bryce has pissed off; you’ll be lucky if you don’t wind up dead just for knowing him.”
Kind of people? Doug was confused for a moment, but then something clicked. “Wait; are you a goon?”
She looked a bit uncomfortable by the question. “My title is ‘Enforcer’.”
“Which is like a goon, right? I mean, you’re hired by some guy to rough people up?”
“And that job is called an ‘Enforcer’.”
Doug looked the young woman over. She was kinda cute and not at all imposing… even with the knife pointed at him. “You really don’t look like a goon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well… you’re not intimidating at all. Goons should be able to intimidate people.”
She now pressed the blade of her knife against Doug’s face. “I think you’ll be scared once I start cutting you!”
“I wouldn’t like it, but I still don’t think that would make you seem like a goon. I mean, a little kid could come at me waving a knife, and I might be scared of getting cut, but the kid still wouldn’t be intimidating.” Doug thought for a moment. “It’s kinda hard to describe, but when I think of a goon I think of someone who should be able to scare me even without a weapon.”
“Are you saying women can’t be goo… enforcers?”
“No, I’m just… uh… saying that, even for a woman, you’re not very goonish.”
A large man also in a black suit came out of an alley from behind the apartment building. “I don’t see any other exits,” he told the goonette. He had a scarred face and was a number of pounds bigger than Doug, and all of it looked to be muscle.
“Now he’s what I think of when I hear the word ‘goon’,” Doug said. “He’s intimidating.”
The man walked right up to Doug, and the goonette backed off a bit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was just telling the lady goon there that she doesn’t seem goonish. I didn’t mean it personal or anything.”
The goon grabbed Doug by his collar and lifted him up slightly. It was pretty scary and much less awkward than when the goonette did it. “That’s sexist! Shannon is a very a good goon.”
“Enforcer!” Shannon corrected.
“She’s roughed up a lot bigger punks than you,” the goon said.
“Maybe she has, but that’s not what I was talking about. Now, I’ve never hired goons, but I have been roughed up by them before. And, to me, a goon should be scary even before the roughing up, just like you’re doing now. She just isn’t intimidating, that’s all.” As Doug got into the argument, he began to gesticulate a bit. This caused the pipe in his sleeve to slip into his hand and reminded him why he was out here in the first place. “Oh yeah.” He smacked the goon in the head, sending him straight to the ground. He then turned to Shannon and held up the pipe, ready to strike again, but just couldn’t hit her, as she really didn’t look that intimidating.
As Doug stood still with the pipe posed over his head, Shannon pointed her knife at him, her hand visibly shaking. Her left hand slowly reached under her jacket. “I have a gun!”
“Well… if you pull out that gun, I’ll bash you good! I really will!”
“This is one pathetic stalemate.” Doug glanced to his side see that Bryce was bent over the downed goon. Bryce pulled a gun out of the goon’s jacket and then stood up and pointed it at Shannon. “You mentioned something about having a gun; why don’t you slowly give that to me.”
She dropped her knife and handed over a pistol. “You’re not going to get away with this, Bryce,” she told him in an attempt at a threatening voice that Doug thought really fell short. “You’re a dead man.”
“Why does everyone take everything so personally?” Bryce looked to Doug. “Now give her a good whack.”
“But she’s unarmed.”
“Which should make it easy.”
Doug looked at Shannon, who stared back in fear. He closed his eyes and prepared to swing, but Shannon bolted. Bryce aimed one of his guns at her but eventually just threw his hands in the air. “Call me sentimental, Doug, but I just can’t shoot an unarmed woman I recently slept with in the back. Anyway, good going there, nitwit. When goons get away, they tend to multiply.”
“She just didn’t look like a goon.”
Bryce handed one of the guns to Doug. “Get with the times, Doug. Even criminal organizations are getting pressured to meet quotas, and that means there is a high demand for female goons.”
“I didn’t know that.” Doug looked over the pistol. “Aren’t these illegal to have when we’re not in uniform?”
“That’s why you hide it under your coat like so.” Bryce put away his gun, and Doug put his in a pocket on the inside of his jacket. “Now grab my stuff…” Bryce pointed to his briefcase and suitcase near the apartment’s doorway. “…and let’s go meet our dates.”
Doug grabbed the bags. “Why are goons after you anyway?”
“Doug, I don’t inquire about your personal life, so leave mine alone.”
“I just watch TV and play videogames when you’re not around.”
“And that’s your business.”
Doug followed Bryce. “And you never did tell me why you trashed your apartment.”
“If I explained everything to you, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else. Come on, Doug; destiny awaits.”
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(NOTE: Frank J.’s hastily hacked together stories are in no way supported or condoned by Baen)

BEGINNING OF STORY
PREVIOUS (PART 6)

“How do you tell if someone is following you and not just heading in the same direction?” Doug entered the apartment building with Bryce. It wasn’t in the nicest part of town, but it wasn’t in the worst part of town either. He had no idea how Bryce was able to obtain it while it currently belonged to the Proserpine military, but Doug did know that asking him about it would never bring about any answers. Anyway, other things worried him more. “I really don’t think you should be tricking those two women into whatever your scheme is this time.”
“Just trust me, Doug.”
“Why?”
This gave Bryce pause. After a moment, he answered, “Because I saved your life today. You at least owe me a little trust for that.”
Bryce had never played the “I saved your life” card before. Then again, all the other times Doug was rescued by Bryce, it was Bryce’s fault he needed saving in the first place. “You promise you won’t get them killed or something?”
Bryce took a second to answer that. “This is an important plan, Doug. It will mean no more pointless fights and pointless deaths for some whack-job who thinks he or she is a god. The more people I involve with this, the better.”
This did make it sound more important than Bryce’s usual scheme to earn a few dishonest credits. It certainly seemed he was building to something, as he had been gone more than a week before today’s battle – the longest Doug had ever known Bryce to be out on his own. Doug was a little hurt to be that much out of the loop, but he always got the feeling that when Bryce didn’t involve him with something, it was best he didn’t know about it. Now Doug was actually curious what this was about, especially if it was going to free them from the Empress Proserpine’s government as well as those of the other emperors. This was beginning to sound like it might be as important a task as he had dreamed about last night. “So are we going to finally fight the system?”
Bryce struck Doug in the back of his head. “No! Of course not, you idiot. Don’t even joke about that. The system is big and was put in place by many powerful people who will kill all who would dare threaten it. You should never even contemplate taking on the system. You only game or play the system – never fight it.” He headed up the stairwell. “Enough talk; let’s get moving.”
Bryce’s apartment was on the fifth floor. They stopped in front of it as Bryce inspected the door – especially near the handle. Bryce pointed to one spot near the frame. “A sharp kick here should break the door in.”
Doug stared a while at that spot until he noticed Bryce was staring at him. “What?”
“Are you going to kick it or knock it down with the power of your pea-sized brain?”
Doug furrowed his brow. “Don’t you have a key?”
Bryce sighed. “I asked you to trust me, but you’re still inundating me with dumb questions. Of course I have a key. Now kick the door in.”
With one sharp kick, the door broke open. Bryce’s apartment wasn’t very large, but he had furnished it with a certain sense of style that made Bryce appear more opulent than he was. Or at least it did until Bryce started knocking over tables, smashing decorations, and ripping his paintings.
“Why are you breaking everything?”
Bryce broke a glass coffee table with a chair. “Again with the questions! Are you writing an exposé on me or something?”
“Sorry.” Doug looked around. “Can I smash something at least?”
Bryce moved to the kitchen and started knocking plates and glasses out of his cabinets. “No; you might break something I need.” Bryce stopped to look out his window. “Oh, and to answer an earlier question, the way you can tell someone is following you is that he will be trying to look like he’s not following you.”
“But everyone looks like they’re not following me.”
Bryce grabbed a briefcase near his bed and started filling it with some items from his filing cabinet. “Yes, but there’s a difference between how someone looks when they’re actually not following you and when they’re trying to look like they’re not following you.” He knocked over the filing cabinet. “Anyway, there is a pipe under the sink. Go get it.”
Doug looked under the sink. “The only pipe I see is connected to the sink.”
Bryce took a suitcase out of his closet and knocked over all his hanging clothes. “That’s the one; pull it out.”
With a little effort, Doug pulled out the pipe causing himself to be sprayed with water. “The water is still on!”
“That it is.” Bryce walked to his door carrying his briefcase in one hand and the suitcase in another. “Let’s get going to the meeting point. You lead the way.”
Doug walked out into the hallway and tried to hand Bryce his pipe.
“No, you keep that; I’ll carry the rest.”
That was another first for Bryce: him carrying the heavy stuff. Doug didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and led the way back down the stairs. Before they got to the exit, Bryce said, “Hold on a sec.” He put down his briefcase and suitcase. “Put the pipe up your sleeve.”
Doug stuck the pipe up his right sleeve and curled his hand inwards to hold it in. “What am I doing?”
“Just a simple little errand. What I want you to do is walk out of the apartment, bash any goons you see in the head with that pipe, and then call me when the coast is clear.”
“Wha?” was all Doug was able to utter before Bryce had shoved him out the door.
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