A Secret Man of Blood

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Alone in a tent in the army camp, Sig and Squad are engaged in a heated argument, the latter slamming a wooden trunk in anger.

"You so do not understand!"

"You don't want to face the truth!" Sig screams, voice cracking like an angry bark of thunder. "You can't take it! You can't take it!"

"I know what's true!" Squad shouts back. "I know what's at stake!"

Anya enters, clearly perplexed by the argument. "What's wrong? Has something terrible happened?"

Both men look sheepish.

"It's nothing," Squad assures her.

"It's just..." Sig begins.

"What!?" Anya demands.

"Okay, I'm going to tell her—" Sig begins, breathing deeply.

"No, don't!" Squad interrupts.

Sig blurts it out. "What would win in a fight: a lion the size of a squirrel or a squirrel the size of a lion?"

A numb silence fills the tent, broken by an astonished Anya.

"...You've been fighting about this for six hours!?"

"Ye...s," Squad answers, looking at Sig as if to say this is all your fault.

"We're just two chilled-out pimps trying to work out a science fact," Sig explains, to the bemusement of everyone.

Anya shakes her head. "Sometimes I can't tell the difference between you and a pimp."

"Pimp's dress better," Sig tells her. "Anyway, what's your opinion?"

"On the squirrel/lion thing?" Anya asks, Sig nodding. "I don't know what to say."

"Say the squirrel would win," Sig suggests.

Squad butts in. "The innate ferocity of a lion—"

"IT'S A BIG SQUIRREL!" Sig screams.

"It's still a squirrel!" Squad shouts back. "It's still a squirrel! It doesn't have the inborn instinct of a fighter, needed to—"

Anya raises her hand and the fighting males immediately fall silent.

"Wait a minute...does the squirrel have nuts?" she asks. "The eating kind, I mean."

"Yes," Squad quickly responds and Sig frowns.

"He's trying to cripple my squirrel with giant nuts!"

"No," corrects Anya. "I was actually thinking, if the nuts were huge too, the squirrel could use them to crush the tiny lion."

A jubilant Sig immediately switches position. "Ah-ha! I knew you agreed with me! I knew it!"

"Only the animals are mutants, not the objects," Squad swiftly corrects.

"What?" Sig asks, flabbergasted.

"You heard me. If it had nuts, they would be tiny nuts."

"This is bullshit!" Sig declares, as a soldier enters and speaks to Squad.

"Sir, an officer from the O.S.S. is asking to see you."

"The Office of Strategic Services? I wonder what the spies want with me," Squad flippantly says to Anya and Sig, exiting the tent.

When he's gone, Anya turns to Sig. "What I'd give to be a fly on the wall in that meeting..."

"Flies don't own property, so you couldn't give anything – also, flies can't speak, so you wouldn't understand what they're saying."