Lightspeed: Drug Detectives

Chapter 36 (Act IV): The Lunch Club - A Redux

ARGH! Hey, everybody. Ariel Axilas here, and welcome back to another chapter of my second novel, "Lightspeed: Drug Detectives". Last time, we caught up to the Celestial Syndicate's buyer and his associates at the cliffs near the Fortaleza Ozama, and I gave them the fucking verbal lashing of a lifetime regarding the trade that they've immersed themselves in. Of course, being bad guys, they were too dumb to listen to me or even show a sliver of reconsideration, so I just cuffed them and brought all of the involved people and items to the Crime Lab in a matter of seconds using my super speed.

After it's just me, my best friend Erica Shields, and the Paragon Herman alone at the cliffs once again, Herman recaps all of the events that have occurred since the day started, and finally says that we have everything we need to properly dismantle the Celestial Syndicate, which has been our ultimate goal all along.

However......he decides that we should get lunch first. Yes. He wants us.....to go and get LUNCH.....when we're literally THIS close to accomplishing the entire thing that we literally came to the Dominican Republic for. Sometimes, I love Herman—especially when he revealed that he memorized the path from the Celestial Compound's front gates to the Fortaleza Ozama—but at other times, I fucking hate him. It's very.....vitriolic, if any of you know that word.

I tried my best to absolutely refuse to take them to lunch......only to find myself at the Hard Rock Café one scene later, inside a booth with Erica and Herman.

What's happening with me, guys? I already thought I was tough, headstrong, and stubborn.....how'd I let them get to me so easily? Ugh.....whatever.

This time......we have lunch. And I don't like it. Three.....two.....ugh. I can't even finish the countdown. Just read the chapter.

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This honestly feels like padding, you guys. I, your usually friendly and foul-mouthed superheroine Lightspeed, honestly don't know if this is the author's doing or not, but this really feels like those moments in videos and movies where the characters are like "Okay, we're finally going to do.....this thing!".....but then they suddenly get sidetracked at the last minute by something else.

Whatever. It's fine......it's fine. Between this chapter and the last one, I've taken some time to do some deep breathing exercises and calm myself; I already have a legendarily short temper as is, and the last thing I would want is for it to get out of control now.

If it has to get out of control sometime, I would prefer it to be when we're attacking the Celestial Compound.

It's fine.....it's fine. It's......fine.

Maybe the author does have a use for this chapter besides just an entire scene of my teammates and I having lunch. Oh! Also, I should mention.....while we were on our way to the Hard Rock Café from the Fortaleza Ozama, I swung back by Celeste's Clairvoyance Shop again and picked our vehicles back up; now I have my car again, and Herman has his motorcycle. They're both obviously waiting outside in the parking lot, though.....we couldn't bring them into the café.

By now, we've already gotten started on filling ourselves back up, and we're currently sharing a basket of slow-roast wings with blue cheese dressing. I'm mostly focused on eating the celery sticks that came with it, though.....my stomach's still turning out of shock 'cause of how quickly I gave in to my best friend Erica Shields and the Paragon Herman's requests to take me to lunch.

I'm still mad, though. That won't be going away anytime soon.

"Hey.....come on, Ari, lighten up," Erica says to me, once again subtly making reference to my real name—Ariel—without necessarily blurting it out for everyone to hear, thankfully. "Don't be such a sourpuss! Wait.....you know what I just realized? This would be a great time to discuss our plan of attack, if nothing else!"