Twenty-Nine Cozy Bears

18

Washington D.C., USA


Doug woke with a jolt. Nothing of what chased him from sleep remained from whatever dream he had just escaped. Only the vague sense of jaws snapping at his legs hung for a moment behind his eyes, an image made of smoke but for a moment —- and then it collapsed and evaporated. Now,  not even smoke. Nothing with context. 

He rubbed his eyes and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. The bed was empty — he expected Samantha to be next to him — but the apartment wasn't empty. After putting on a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt, he went out to the living-room, and found Samantha laying upside down over the edge of the couch, her feet up the back, in the air, while playing Wipeout on his his PS/6.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall near the hallway, not wanting to disturb her, and watched her play from the shadows. Her eyes shown with focus — he fell into them every time. She had an enthralling effect on him. Her name should be Epiphany (a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning... ) Every time he saw her, he understood who he was and what he wanted... and she should have twin swords on her back where-ever she went.

"I heard you Doug. You can come in, you won't disturb my game," Samantha said, without looking away from the giant TV screen and the wild ride within.

"Well, you looked happy, and naked," he said, as he straightened up from the wall and stepped out of the dark shadows of the hall into the tech flashing color lit living-room.

She laughed, and then rolled and folded her body in a lithe sensual knot, then untangled into a more normalized posture for the couch, all without crashing her game. Glancing at him she said, "You just had your tongue... everywhere, and you are disturbed by my nudity now?"

Doug sat down near her on the couch and stretched out, watching her agile hands and flawless fingers control the anti-gravity speeder through the the twisted, light flashing race course at impossible speeds. The sound of the TV system was turned down, but he could still hear the thumping of the techno-bass and drum from the video game's soundtrack.

"Having trouble getting to sleep?" he asked her.

"No," she said. "I wanted to wake up and call Hanna. It is 3:30am here so that makes it around lunch time there."

"Hanna, your contact in the Mossad? Israeli Military Intelligence?"

"Um, yeah, sure," she said to the obligatory oxymoron.

"Did she have anything good to say?" he asked. turning to look at the game as Samantha glided the anti-gravity speeder through several hard turns he couldn't go through at half her speed.

"Huh," she grunted, "I think today is a perfect day to lay off the ideas of good and bad, or right and wrong."

It was difficult just to watch the game at this speed, "So, we just toss in the towel and let the shroud of chaos descend?"

"Well," she said, drawing out the word, stretching it with a rickety canter in her throat, as she flipped the speeder on the screen in a fashion he didn't know it could perform.

Her long word faded, as her lungs sighed, but then nothing. He waited for her to add something. Nothing. He glanced over to see if she had suffered a stroke. Her eyes were fixated on a track course she obviously had muscle-memorized. After almost two minutes he said, "Well, what? Zombies have attacked? It's Jerusalem, they've dealt with zombies before."

An explosion of white light flooded the room from Samantha's speeder smashing into the stone side of a tunnel, blowing flames and speeder parts out from the massive ball of flame and death. She turned her attention to him, her eyes narrowed and her expression one of control, "There are no zombies in Jerusalem. "

"Well, not now there aren't. But when Jesus was crucified they came out into the streets proclaiming him lord or something like that. "

Her expression went from controlled to cold. "Those were not zombies." She clicked off the game and the TV. "They were loved ones and citizens who came back to tell the living how badly they just fucked up."

He lifted his palms in surrender, "Ok. Cool. I had no idea that you were religious." Her shoulders folded in and down, and she sighed. "No, I'm not offended. I'm dodging."

He waited.

"The group arrived in Tehran in the early afternoon." she said.

"Yeah? Ok," he offered as encouragement.

"He's with them."

"He's with them? Who?" he asked, feeling grateful that they weren't going to have a religious war in the living room on their first Saturday off together in months.

"Him. HIM."

A chill, touched his heart, "No, they are mistaken. He is dead."

"No mistake. He would never leave Russia for all that time and now he is in Iran."

"No, he is dead. I watched a bullet blow his skull apart."

"Their operative knows him. She has met him in the past. The ID is clean and solid."

"Then their operative needs to get as far away as possible, as soon as possible."

"He didn't recognize her," she reported.

"If he met her in the past, yes he does. He remembers everything."