Cocoa Tales

Episode 24

Ten minutes later, a guard was walking along the nearly empty beige hallway near the armory door. He stopped suddenly when a loud thump reverberated from the armory. He stopped, and he stared at the door. He tilted his head to the side when the thump occurred again. Waving over another guard, he spoke softly into his microphone: "Come on down here, sir, something is going down."

Another guard approached the armory door slowly, his hand on his gun. Another audible thump vibrated the door briefly. The guards, now a full semicircle around the armory door, stepped back when the thumping became louder, and then continued one, another, then another, and then the door opened. A slow cloud of mist slipped out of the door and the guards quickly raised their guns.

Out of the mist stepped Floyd in black battle armor equipped with robotic legs, his face occluded by a reflective mask. He held a double-barreled shotgun and his voice, electronic through the mask, said, "It's my story now, Teller."

In the center of the semicircle, The Chief stood with arms crossed. He cleared his throat and said, "Floyd?"

Raising the reflective mask, Floyd stared at his chief. "Oh. Hi Chief. I, uh..."

"What are you doing?"

"Okay, listen: the Storyteller has gone rogue. He's working against us now."

"The Storyteller."

"Yeah," Floyd said nodding quickly. "The guy telling this story. He was on our side and now he's on Monty Gerald's side. He had writer's block a while back but it looks like he's changed sides to get the story going again. But I'm fighting back, Boss, I'm fighting the Storyteller."

Lowering his head for a moment, the Chief exhaled slowly through his nose. He smiled, lifted his head and said, "Floyd, buddy, you're clearly very tired. I've been asking a lot of you these last few days."

"It's okay, sir, I'm on it! I'll get this story back on track."

"We lost another high school this morning on your watch, but don't worry: I won't hold it against you. Clearly you've been running quite a while on no real sleep. I just think we should let you get some. We've got a bed for you here in Cell Block 'S' so you can get some rest."

Another guard removed the gun from Floyd's hands as the Chief took Floyd by the arm. "No!" Floyd exclaimed, "you're working for him, aren't you!?"

"I am," the Chief said as though he were speaking to a toddler, "I am working for...the Storyteller?"

A few of the guards snickered behind Floyd. "No!" Floyd exclaimed as they dragged him down the hallway. "You shouldn't be working for him! He's bad now! He's bad now!"

Pacing around the cell, sans battle armor again, Floyd was breathing heavily. The Sandman was seated on the bed watching him pace, Jessica seated next to him. "Okay, so when I was in Paris," she said, gesticulating with her hand, "and I was running and running down the alleyway: I stopped. And I was about to check the dumpsters when something exploded a hundred yards behind me."

"I was in one of the dumpsters," The Sandman replied.

With a semi-frustrated smile Jessica shook her head and a fist. "I knew it!"

"Remote detonator," The Sandman continued. "I never trusted the guy with the goatee. I set up the diversion in case he betrayed me."

"Yeah, I only worked with him the one time," Jessica said with a nod. "I knew he couldn't cut it."

The Sandman nodded. "Yeah, Holiday, if you'd checked the dumpsters first, you might've caught me."

"Eh, what can you do?" Jessica said with a shrug. "What about London?"