Issue #24: March, 2012

DEVIATION JONES: A TRILOGY

by Christopher Grant

She's hotter than Pam Grier on a hundred degree day. Sorry, Pam, but she is.

The first thing you'd notice about her is her afro. Black with pink and gold running through it somehow. Not highlights. Just born that way, I guess. Her purple sunglasses hiding eyes that no doubt burn with her untamed fire. The bikini top she wears hints at chocolate breasts topped with chocolate-chip nipples. The low-rise jeans hang just below the purple waistband of a thong resting on her hips. When she bends over, you can see ass-crack heaven.

Thing is, this woman, her name's Deviation Jones.

And she's an assassin of some repute.

The rifle in her hands is right now aimed at the hover-parade coming around the corner.

The City celebrates the latest debacle known as the presidential election.

Funny that this president, just like the last one, didn't actually win. The same thing has happened ever since The City took over the counting duties twelve years ago.

But it's always been this way, hasn't it? Just trading trash for shit.

Deviation rests her eye on the scope and says, "Adjust," and the scope does as it's told, honing in on the front of the car carrying the new president.

The goal is to get him out of the protective bubble that surrounds him. Literal bubble, too; it's made out of pure latex. How appropriate that the guy that's gonna fuck us for the next four years is being protected by a condom.

Her finger touches the trigger and the bolt hits the hood, penetrating it and connecting with the engine block, effectively killing the car. It's a literal bolt, just like the literal bubble, fired at something like the speed of sound that flies through the air, through the hood, through the engine block.

At that rate of speed, no one saw it and thus Deviation doesn't have to run for her fucking life. She can, instead, set up for the kill shot. A bolt right through the president's skull, bursting through the cranium, hitting the brainpan. Squish.

Just then, as the new car pulls up and they ready the president to make his move, the door of the roof entrance behind Deviation opens and a black-shaded behemoth comes through.

"Fuck me," Deviation says.

We'd love to do just that, Deviation, believe us. But it looks like you might have something else to take care of first.

HOW TO GET OFF A ROOF THE SIMPLEST WAY POSSIBLE

by Christopher Grant

The guy's, what, like three-fifty, well over six-and-a-half feet tall. The seams on the dark suit that he wears are screaming as they attempt to hold together. The sunglasses on his face are tiny.

Deviation Jones, she's got that gun of hers and she raises it now, sighting on the behemoth. She doesn't have the chance to say, "Adjust"," before the gun's barrel is in his ham hock of a hand. He snaps the barrel in half and tosses the gun aside.

"Shit," Deviation says. No kidding, babe.

The guy's other hand comes this close to punching a hole through her head. Or at least her considerable afro. Instead, he smashes right through the ledge behind Deviation and now he's stuck.

That's one way to get off a roof the simplest way possible.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple and Deviation, lady, you should have just run the fuck through that door.

The blob flexes his muscles, doing a curl, and busts through the brick and mortar, causing all kinds of debris to tumble to the street, sixty-some stories below. We'd hate to be the guy that doesn't have his umbrella handy down there. 

Now it's a race up there, sixty-some stories above the street, both of them going for the door. Come on, girl, you can make it if you try.

The Punch does it.

Punch: a drug of choice, not of habit, can be snorted or ingested. Punch Gives You Pep (cue smiling blonde beautiful bikini-clad woman). Use only as directed.

Deviation's through the door ten seconds before the behemoth and down to the fortieth floor before he even clears the fiftieth.

She's in the hallway of the twenty-ninth floor, looking for another exit, when he catches up with her. You're not the only one with Punch onboard, baby. Grab a weapon and get ready to rock.

Deviation smashes the glass on the In Case Of Emergency box with her bare fist. Damn that stings. She grabs the fire ax and a wide stance and waits for the goon to make the first move. He does the same, except grabbing a fire ax. One to a hallway, sorry, pal.

They circle each other. The suspense is terrible. We hope it lasts.

A door behind Deviation opens up and this dweeb in a bowtie steps right into the fist of the behemoth, who was thinking the distraction would catch Deviation off-guard. Silly behemoth, tricks are for kids.

Deviation swings the ax and buries it in the blob's side. The impact of the blow rattles her purple sunglasses, sending them askew across her nose. She has trouble yanking the ax free, stuck in the gristle, muscle and bone the way it is. Finally, it comes loose with a torrent of blood and she takes another hack, catching him in the neck. Jugular. Done. He chokes on his own blood.

Deviation adjusts her sunglasses and drops the ax. Then she gets the idea to drag the dweeb over and set the ax in his hands. Waste not, want not.

THE BOSS

by Christopher Grant

The undulating hips of the topless four-armed dancer make a man want to do naughty things to her indeed. Her breasts swaying back and forth ain't half-bad, either.

She gyrates and swivels and shakes and erections pop up everywhere around the room. Thank god for pants.

The air is thick with opium smoke and you could get high without even trying. Those who have partaken laze about without cares or fears.

There is a horn of some kind blowing from somewhere but Deviation Jones cannot see it as she steps into the tent.

There are vid-screens all over the place showing the president's car breaking down in the middle of his celebratory hover-parade.

Oh, so that's how they transfer someone from one hovercar to another. Good to know.

In the middle of this circus sits one of the fattest men she's ever laid her eyes on. Go on a diet, buddy.

The dancer approaches Deviation and, with one of her hands, pulls her forward for a kiss. Deviation lets herself go for a moment. Who can blame her?

"He's still sucking down air," the corpulent one says leering at the two women. The dancer moves away from Deviation and shakes her generous ass in Fatty's face.

"Not my fault," Deviation says. You tell him, baby. "I hit the engine block and just as they..."

"I don't care what happened," the fat man says, starting to lose his patience. "All I know is that he's still alive. And, if he's still alive, that means the rest of us are living on borrowed time. Especially you."

"So what the fuck am I supposed to do?" Deviation asks the obvious question.

"Duck," the fat man says.

Four guns materialize out of nowhere, hanging in midair momentarily. The dancer plucks them with her four hands and trains them on Deviation, then squeezes the triggers all at the same time.

Somehow, Deviation avoids getting hit but her pleather jacket isn't so lucky, taking two in the left sleeve, down by the wrist, the bullets going through cleanly. The four-armed topless bitch wouldn't know high fashion if it came up and slapped her across the face and now she's gone and murdered it.

The other two bullets perforate the spleens of two of the lazing opium addicts. The rest don't even seem to notice. Can't understand why not. Oh, yeah, the opium.

Deviation doesn't waste a second and, at the risk of being shot point-blank, grabs the dancer by the head and snaps her neck. The dancer screams, nearly deafening anyone within a couple blocks. Seriously, her voice breaks windows up to five hundred feet away. Her four arms beat wildly at the carpet and it takes her body over a minute to register that this is death. Bye-bye.

Guess who's next?

The fat man can't get out of his chair. How'd he get into it in the first place?

Deviation smiles as she pulls the knife from her boot.

"Now, I did a job," Deviation says.

"You didn't complete it," the fat man says, sweat rolling down into the folds around his chin. Er, chins. Gotta hand it to him—even when faced with death, even when his voice squeaks higher than a soprano's, he's got balls.

"Who was the goon?" Deviation says.

The silence says it all. The silence is followed by the scream of a fat man. A fat man who doesn't have balls anymore, if the scrotum that Deviation tosses aside is anything to judge by.

Good for you, girl. Proves money isn't everything.




Christopher Grant is a writer of crime/noir and experimental fiction like the trilogy above. He is also the editor/publisher of A Twist Of Noir, Eaten Alive (zombie fiction) and Alternate Endings.