building trying to think of other regrettable events in his past. The problem was that there were so many.
After a short period of intense thought, he said, “Oh, I was just trying to figure out why you would want to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
Steve looked over at Ace and pointed at the pistol. “Do you miss very often with that?”
She pointed the pistol at his groin. “About as often as you miss with that.”
Steve spoke into the phone again. “Listen, Barnaby or whoever the hell you are, I’m as willing to give my up life for the advancement of science as any other man–which means not at all. Anyway, I don’t think the Master Chief here is ready to shoot me.”
Ace’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then she began to inspect her weapon–pulling out the clip to check the load, replacing it, and racking the slide.
Steve held up his hand. “OK, maybe she’s ready, but I am not willing to be shot.”
The voice on the phone said. “Oh. I see the problem. Well, just tell her to shoot to wound–not kill.”
Steve put his hand over the microphone at the bottom of the phone and said. “Good Lord, this guy is crazy. Now he’s saying just shoot to wound as if–”
In a movement almost too fast to see, Ace raised the pistol, aimed at Steve’s upper arm, and pulled the trigger.
Steve had always heard people say that “time slowed” in a crisis situation–hell, he’d even written it into a story once or twice– but he’d thought it was just a cheap literary device that bad novelists used to get their hero out of a desperate situation. It just didn’t happen in real life.
Time slowed.
Steve could see Ace’s trigger finger begin to relax. The slide on her pistol was moving backward and her hand jerked up from the recoil. For a moment–no, that would be wrong–for some tiny fraction of a second, he thought he could see the bullet come spinning out of the muzzle. Maybe he would experience his own Matrix-style “bullet-time,” except he couldn’t bend backwards like Keanu Reeves so it would only result in some extra moments to imagine how much the bullet would hurt before it actually hurt.
No bullet came out. Instead, the muzzle of the automatic seemed to warp back and forth like a slow-motion video of a rubber band snapping. Eventually, it settled down into a vertical slot from which a jagged bolt of blue lightning began to emerge. It was surprising but, frankly, Steve couldn’t see how being artistically zapped was much of an improvement over just being shot.
About a half inch of the bolt had emerged from the gun before Steve admitted that time had, against all reason, slowed. He tried to move–throw himself out of the path of the lightning–but his muscles didn’t react. Apparently, only his mind was moving at super-speed–his body was even slower than usual.
“I guess that means I have to do something with just my mind,” he thought.
He tried Demanding that the lightning stop. Then, in order, he attempted Praying to several gods (including the image of Jesus that had appeared on his toast in 1995), Offering his soul to any devil who would make a reasonable bargain for it, and Performing what might be considered a Vulcan mind meld if he were a Vulcan and the lightning had a mind.
None of these attempts had any effect. He considered going on to devils with completely unreasonable bargains, barring only the ones who wanted to eat him immediately.
He noticed that the blue streak was making a low, growling sound. He reasoned that what he was hearing was a slowed version of the crackling, Taser-like zzzzap of the jagged electrical pulse that now stretched halfway between him and Ace.
Wait.
What had Ace said this morning when they’d fallen to their deaths? Well, technically, they hadn’t fallen, she’d jumped, and they weren’t actually dead but...
He forced his mind back to the immediate emergency.
Something about a death loop and some sort of magic.
Blood
After a short period of intense thought, he said, “Oh, I was just trying to figure out why you would want to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
Steve looked over at Ace and pointed at the pistol. “Do you miss very often with that?”
She pointed the pistol at his groin. “About as often as you miss with that.”
Steve spoke into the phone again. “Listen, Barnaby or whoever the hell you are, I’m as willing to give my up life for the advancement of science as any other man–which means not at all. Anyway, I don’t think the Master Chief here is ready to shoot me.”
Ace’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then she began to inspect her weapon–pulling out the clip to check the load, replacing it, and racking the slide.
Steve held up his hand. “OK, maybe she’s ready, but I am not willing to be shot.”
The voice on the phone said. “Oh. I see the problem. Well, just tell her to shoot to wound–not kill.”
Steve put his hand over the microphone at the bottom of the phone and said. “Good Lord, this guy is crazy. Now he’s saying just shoot to wound as if–”
In a movement almost too fast to see, Ace raised the pistol, aimed at Steve’s upper arm, and pulled the trigger.
Steve had always heard people say that “time slowed” in a crisis situation–hell, he’d even written it into a story once or twice– but he’d thought it was just a cheap literary device that bad novelists used to get their hero out of a desperate situation. It just didn’t happen in real life.
Time slowed.
Steve could see Ace’s trigger finger begin to relax. The slide on her pistol was moving backward and her hand jerked up from the recoil. For a moment–no, that would be wrong–for some tiny fraction of a second, he thought he could see the bullet come spinning out of the muzzle. Maybe he would experience his own Matrix-style “bullet-time,” except he couldn’t bend backwards like Keanu Reeves so it would only result in some extra moments to imagine how much the bullet would hurt before it actually hurt.
No bullet came out. Instead, the muzzle of the automatic seemed to warp back and forth like a slow-motion video of a rubber band snapping. Eventually, it settled down into a vertical slot from which a jagged bolt of blue lightning began to emerge. It was surprising but, frankly, Steve couldn’t see how being artistically zapped was much of an improvement over just being shot.
About a half inch of the bolt had emerged from the gun before Steve admitted that time had, against all reason, slowed. He tried to move–throw himself out of the path of the lightning–but his muscles didn’t react. Apparently, only his mind was moving at super-speed–his body was even slower than usual.
“I guess that means I have to do something with just my mind,” he thought.
He tried Demanding that the lightning stop. Then, in order, he attempted Praying to several gods (including the image of Jesus that had appeared on his toast in 1995), Offering his soul to any devil who would make a reasonable bargain for it, and Performing what might be considered a Vulcan mind meld if he were a Vulcan and the lightning had a mind.
None of these attempts had any effect. He considered going on to devils with completely unreasonable bargains, barring only the ones who wanted to eat him immediately.
He noticed that the blue streak was making a low, growling sound. He reasoned that what he was hearing was a slowed version of the crackling, Taser-like zzzzap of the jagged electrical pulse that now stretched halfway between him and Ace.
Wait.
What had Ace said this morning when they’d fallen to their deaths? Well, technically, they hadn’t fallen, she’d jumped, and they weren’t actually dead but...
He forced his mind back to the immediate emergency.
Something about a death loop and some sort of magic.
Blood
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