In Which Our Heroine And Her Laser Cannon End A Relationship
A short story by Elizabeth Bent
Copyright 2015 Elizabeth Bent
Acknowledgements
I wrote the first version of this story in 1996, and it has been sitting gathering dust since. I swear it is not autobiographical! I decided to exhume it and revised it this year, and am releasing it just in time for Valentine’s Day. I dedicate it to my very patient husband Seth Schwartz, and to my Muse (to whom everything I write is dedicated).
I designed the cover, and so its flaws are wholly my fault.
Elizabeth Bent
February 2015
I paused, hefted the wide canvas straps of the cannon's carrying bag, and continued plodding up the stairwell. This wasn't really about Zack, although I was certain that the news media would jump to that conclusion. No, Zack had merely been the proverbial last straw.
I grinned, fiercely.
The cannon was Zack's fault, really. He gave me the idea last week, when he came by to pick up his rock collection. Our final meeting began badly. Zack informed me that he had arrived in his customary way; that is, he sat in his convertible and leaned on the horn, waiting for me to come down and open the security door.
Enraged, I had opened my window and began throwing his rocks—each carefully labeled, with a lovingly printed serial number and description of origin—at him, and his car. We exchanged a variety of insults, many unprintable, at full volume, as interested neighbors clustered at windows or on porches.
"Oh yeah?" Zack yelled, in response to a particularly inventive comment of mine on his sexual inadequacies. He picked up a large, green-flecked chunk of serpentine and hurled it up at my window, missing completely. A musical crash somewhere below and to my right marked where the rock had stuck somebody's wind chimes.
"Well, you couldn't blow me with a laser cannon!"
A few moments later Zack was distracted by the owner of the wind chimes, who was advancing across the lawn brandishing the sad remains of what had once been a trio of porcelain owls.
A wave of sadness swept over me as I watched Zack confront this new threat. There was something sexy about the way his nostrils flared, and he looked so passionate as he grabbed a piece of broken owl, threw it to the ground and began jumping up and down on it. Melodrama welled up in me, and with images of Scarlett O'Hara reeling though my brain I cried out his name, ready to say that I loved him, I forgave him—
"Shut up!" Zack screamed, momentarily distracted. Seconds later he crumpled to the ground, the unconscious victim of a sucker punch.
I sighed, remembering, and dabbled at my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.
The fifth floor was, of course, deserted. I wandered past the security cameras without even attempting to hide my awkward bundle. If Steve, my survivalist brother-in-law, and his paramilitary chums had wired the cameras correctly, my movements on this floor would not be recorded. Steve had sworn me to several fearful oaths of secrecy regarding the source of the laser cannon and the video-rigging equipment, and had wanted to seal our compact by tattooing the complicated sigil of the Invisible Defenders of the American Nation on my right wrist. I persuaded him to accept a handshake and a case of Viagra instead.
I dragged the cannon over to my chosen window. Outside, people were milling about, and traffic cops in orange jacket were shooing people off the street. It was still early. I figured I had at least half an hour to wait before the parade floats came into view.
Assembling the cannon was easy. All I had to do was unfold the tripod and slip in the power cells. Cutting a small hole in the shatterproof glass of the window was a bit tricky. The glass cutter Steve had packed for me was different from the one I had been practicing with, but I managed within a few minutes. Focusing the telescopic sight took another few minutes. I flipped the cannon's main power switch to let it warm up, listening to its high-pitched hum with a combination of glee and awe. Once assembled, the cannon looked like a fat silver telescope.
I stroked the shaft with my gloved hands, imagining I could feel the power running through it, that my hands, as they moved, were crackling with static.
I ran through my escape scenario several times. It would not take long for security to figure out where the attack had occurred, but by then I would be long gone, having wiped down the cannon, tripod and window with a detergent that would destroy fingerprints and DNA. I would rappel down an empty elevator shaft to the lower basement level, run down a tunnel, up another flight of steps and through a door I had a security pass for, leading into a side corridor of a busy hotel. There was a wig and sunglasses in my bag, to be donned just before entering the hotel, and I could dispose of these along with the security pass in one of the many trash bins lining the streets and nearby parks. It would be easy. No one noticed people like me.
I tried to imagine Zack on his float, and came up with the ridiculous picture of Zack in a long pink taffeta gown and a tinfoil diadem, wearing a beauty pageant sash. He would be near the beginning—the parade wasn't in his honor, after all. The parade was for an astronaut, or something. I didn’t care.
I looked through the telescopic sight, choosing faces at random from among the crowd. I targeted a middle-aged woman in a green coat. She was holding a shopping bag, checking her pockets for something. Was she thinking of mundane things, groceries and paying bills and fixing that leaky tap in the kitchen?
She scratched her chin.
Who would miss you, I asked her silently, if you died today?
My fingers stroked the aluminum trigger, gently, and I whispered, "Pow."
The woman, oblivious, fished a banana out of her shopping bag and began to munch.
My fingers itched. The thought of killing made me feel queasy in a strange, querulous way. I stepped back from the cannon, heart pounding, hands shaking. I didn't want to think about this. I wanted to go home.
Five more minutes to go. I wished the floats would hurry up and come.
Finally, finally, movement—I peered into the telescopic sight. A battered beige Westphalia van, trailing a bluish plume of smoke, lurched erratically down the middle of the closed-off avenue, closely pursued by at least half a dozen traffic cops. A small green-leaf banner waved from one of the windows. The van made a sudden right turn, scattering pedestrians, and lurched down an alley out of sight. Orange cops followed, sirens screaming in pursuit.
I sighed in frustration.
No, wait—
There. Behind the fat gleaming police motorcycles of the official escort, and the few obligatory girls in spangled bathing suits, twirling batons and doing cartwheels, came the first car in the parade. Black, of course, a gleaming monster of a convertible with a long hood like the carapace of a dismembered beetle.
I scanned it through the telescopic sight. Yes, there he was—leaning back in the convertible, hair casually swept back in a manner that must have taken several hours and quite a lot of hair spray to produce. He was waving at the crowd, moving one arm in an imitation of the British Queen. The other arm was creeping up the thigh of a chesty blonde in a low-cut dress.
"Silicon!" I spat, enraged.
I quickly centered the crosshairs on Zack's forehead. I had practiced doing this hundreds of times, it was easy, all I had to do now was pull the trigger—
I stood and stared through the crosshairs. Zack was grinning and waving. I hated him, I hated all the men who casually sauntered into my life, hurt me, then sauntered out again. I hated all of them for how they made me feel—useless, spent, a broken doll, a guttered candle. I hated them most o
f all for brushing my all my threats aside—as if I really were inconsequential, a tiny blustering cartoon character puffing hot air.
I looked for the black rage that had fed me as I had hauled the laser cannon up all those steps.
I should pull the trigger before he gets out of range, I thought, watching the tiny figure through the sight. I should pull the trigger now.
Zack looked tired. There were circles under his eyes, and as I watched him it seemed to me that his smile was forced. The blonde slapped his hand away, scarcely missing a beat in her crowd waving, her jaw working rhythmically.
Godlike, I caressed the cannon's trigger, very slowly, relishing my power.
Who are you, Zack? I asked the tiny, tired figure. Who will miss you when you die? Who will remember you with kindness?
The car stopped momentarily. The blonde grimaced, tossed her head and rolled her eyes, then turned away from him, as much as she could. Her smile resumed its former brilliancy, marred only by the continual motion of her jaw.
In ten years, I asked him, will she remember you? Will anyone?
I carefully moved the crosshairs to a point directly between Zack's eyes. My finger gently touched the trigger.
The image of Zack, his forehead in the crosshairs, hovered beneath me.
Now that I had him completely at my mercy, the full realization of what I had to do next struck me.
My finger, on the trigger, loosened, and I smiled.
"Pow," I whispered, and in that moment, finally, my hate for him dissipated.
The car kept moving. Zack moved out of the crosshairs. I watched quietly, then straightened myself.
Smiling, I shut off the laser cannon and began to disassemble it.
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