High Steaks: A Bjorn Trilogeé Adventure

Chapter 5: Bjorn

Bjorn's astral self was ascending towards 3rd level nirvana as he tried to rid himself of the terrible memories of his past missions. This life of murdering had been weighing heavy on his mind in the past few months. Maybe it would be better if he was a full mind-controlled agent; those guys don't even remember their missions. Evidently The Service found him to be most efficient with a healthy level of consciousness.

He sat in his increasingly filthy apartment in the lotus position listening to what he assumes was a recording of whale songs (they were actually incredibly racist whale jokes about dolphins). A family of mice hurriedly scurried past him without his notice. He tried getting his landlord Sergei to do something about this infestation. Tiring of the incessant phone calls, Sergei took the most obvious course of action and had his phone number changed. Being a vegetarian and lifelong member of PeTA, Bjorn did not want to hurt the mice ... but their fecundity was matched only by their penchant for criminality and moral turpitude. They would take his food and leave only droppings, as if this was a reasonable economic system. Adam Smith would be rolling over in his grave.

In his inner mind he could feel his astral-self grasping towards a glowing ball of infinite beauty, the source of all wisdom. About to reach total enlightenment, he heard a phone ringing. The weird part is that Bjorn didn't even have a landline phone and his cell phone's ringtone was stuck permanently on the 1984 hit 'Big in Japan' by new wave band Alphaville. In the normal order of things, sound is produced by the vibration of air, but this particular ringing made every molecule in his body vibrate in unison. He answered this phantom phone and heard an oddly familiar voice.

He replied to no one in particular, "Hello? ...oh hey, what's up...huh? Do I have time to change? ... Fine, yeesh."

With that the 'phone call' ended and Bjorn got up in a flash, he was wearing his boxer shorts and a Walking Blueberries World Tour t-shirt (a band that he never much cared for before getting a job at The Service). Bjorn ran towards his window at full speed and jumped straight through. His elbow hit the glass first, the crack spreading out like a spider web as his body exited. Each piece of glass flew out slowly, spinning in the cold night air, every shard reflecting the light of the full moon. Time was slowing down for Bjorn as he entered into a fugue state. This usually occurs when he is about to embark on a new 'job'.

Then suddenly time returned to normal as he hit the freezing cold metal of his fire escape and fell backwards down the sharp metal stairs to the floor below.

Bjorn was lying there, injured and looking up towards his shattered window, when an OG-7V rocket propelled grenade crashed into his apartment above. An OG-7V is generally used as an anti-personnel weapon and firing it into a man's apartment is as anti-personnel as one can get. The apartment exploded into a fireball. Glass and debris rained down upon Bjorn as all of his worldly goods were incinerated. His postal uniforms gone! His 2 pair of jeans!! Gone!! His signed VHS copy of 'Don Quixote in Space' all gone!! The family of rats managed to escape.

"All my crap...gone" Bjorn thought to himself.

"Whoever did this is going to pay," he said softly "pay with their life ... permanently."

Bjorn noticed that across the street from his burned out apartment complex stood a man in a window holding a still smoking RPG-7 rocket launcher. Putting two and two together he figured that this was probably the prime suspect.

Still sore from his fall, Bjorn got up and raced down the remaining steps of the fire escape. He wished he wore shoes while meditating, it was pretty cold out. Bjorn picked up his pace. He needed to stop that man before he made a clean getaway.

Reaching the apartment across the street, he unnecessarily kicked down the door, as it was already unlocked. Bjorn entered into a grimy hallway and stood there silently with his back against the wall. The building was dilapidated and abandoned. On the floor near the stairs sat a homeless man, who always dreamt of being an opera singer. "Hey, hey buddy ... do I know ya?" he slurred through his jack o' lantern smile, "I ... I know you. I'm real good with faces." Strangely enough he was quite bad with his own face.