The Pen is Mightier

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Is it sad that I don’t really wanna do the hookers and booze thing?” I asked, meeting her eyes. “I feel like I should, but I just don’t want to.”

  “It’s not sad.” She touched my nose with one finger. “More common than you’d think.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “You’d be surprised how many guys take me back to their room, even single guys, and realize I’m not what they want.” She sighed. “You have no idea how many times I pretend I’m someone else. The girl next door, a stepsister, Lois Lane, whatever really.” She waved a hand. “I’m a master at being what a man needs.” She looked me up and down. “But you’re different. I don’t know why, but I can tell.” She dropped a hand to her crotch. “You bought this just because you could, but once you did, you didn’t care. You seemed the same way at the tables. Like you wanted to win right until you did.”

  “I guess that’s true.” I sighed. “I just… my life is so strange, and I don’t even think I could explain it.”

  “Don’t tell me.” She waved a hand. “We’re not friends. While I’m basically a really hot, naked shrink right now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” She shrugged. “I like my job, and I get the feeling that if we continue down this path, you’ll want to save me.”

  “Heh,” I said because, oddly, the thought hadn’t really crossed my mind. Only now, I could see how it could have.

  “I drive a BMW, and I have great tits.” She cupped her breasts. “I’m honestly really good with this.” She smirked. “Before I came to Vegas, you know what I did?”

  “Um… no.” I shook my head.

  “I was the director of software design for a fortune five hundred company. I hated every second of it. So, I left.” She shrugged. “Found my calling.”

  “Taking shots of cum for a grand an hour?” I said before immediately wishing I could take it back.

  “That is one way of looking at it.” She bit her lip, thinking. “I want you to have a good time, Roger. I just don’t think that good time would be with me.” She put her hand on my crotch and patted it once. “I mean, I’m sitting here naked, and you’re not even hard.” She jerked her head back toward the room where I could hear the sounds of sex. “And you didn’t seem like you enjoyed any of the other girls all that much.” She tapped her chin. “Makes me think it’s not us and it’s you.” She smirked. “And before you ask, no, I don’t think you’re gay.”

  “I’m not gay.” I shrugged, remembering the slender brunette who had tried to suck me off. Only, I could tell she wasn’t into it, and I’d gotten bored a few minutes into her attentions and come out here. Sure, she’d been hot. But lots of women were hot. And I could have any of them.

  What I really wanted was someone I couldn’t have, something I couldn’t have, and I had no idea who or what that was. More than that though? More than banging hot chicks and winning in Vegas I wanted to feel safe, and even with the pen in hand, I didn’t feel safe. If anything, I felt worse, knowing there were people out there after me. No. The only way I was going feel safe was if I got rid of the assholes after me, whoever they were.

  “I believe you’re not gay, trust me, I’ve fucked more than a few guys who were really gay,” she said, shrugging back at me. “But that is sort of my point. You’re clearly not comfortable, and while I can do anything you want, will do anything you want, well, you probably don’t want that either.” She knocked me on the shoulder with her fist. “You’re just too good of a guy.”

  “I’m not really.” I shook my head. “I’ve done things.”

  “Honey, we’ve all done things. You wouldn’t even believe the things I’ve done.” She gave me a stupid smile. “But that hardly makes you a bad person.” She stood. “I’m going to go back inside.” She chewed on her lip for a moment as she looked through the window into the room. “To the left room. You should come. I would like it. I mean that.” She took a step forward, pausing at the door. “If you’re not there in five minutes, I’m going to put my clothes back on and leave, and you won’t ever get to fuck me.” She smirked. “That will definitely be something you’ll regret.”

  “That’s a fair point,” I said as she stepped inside and made her way across the marble floor, all swishing hips and desire.

  I got to my feet though I was unsure if I was going to follow her. Admittedly, she was hot, and I was male, but it was a bit more than that. Something about our talk had changed things.

  Maybe that had been the idea, but she hadn’t been what I’d expected at all, and while I knew she’d tempted me with the fact that I couldn’t have her again on purpose, part of me didn’t care because that probably wasn’t true. Even if I didn’t have my pen, I basically had infinite resources, and she was a hooker. I could have her as many times as I wanted. Probably.

  Still, maybe I was just being stupid. I should go fuck her. I could sort my shit out later. Besides, if I’d learned anything the last few days, it was that I really liked blowjobs.

  Nodding to myself, I took a step toward the door right as the balcony erupted into flame as an explosion threw me from my feet.

  I careened backward in a fireball of pain. My spine slammed into the guardrail with a crack that made agony rip through me, and as spots danced across my vision and the smell of my own burning flesh filled my nose, the railing broke, and I fell from the top of the Cosmopolitan.

  26

  I smashed into the balcony below an instant before a bazillion tons of rock came crashing down around me. I curled myself into a ball, trying to avoid the rain of flaming debris. I was hurt, but my body was far from a battered, broken thing. I should have been dead or paralyzed. I shouldn’t feel half as well as I did.

  My hands went to my body, searching for injuries that had to be there when the creak and groan of the entire structure above filled my ears. That sound made adrenaline rush through my veins as I realized I was about to be flattened. Sure, I might have miraculously survived thus far, but there was no way I’d survive being pancaked by a billion-ton balcony.

  My head snapped toward the spot where the balcony above connected to the building itself. I could see the steel girders straining to hold the weight after the explosion, and I knew that it’d be coming down soon.

  “Fuck!” I cried, driving down my pain as best I could and scrambling to my feet. Part of me didn’t understand how I wasn’t a bloody smear. Then again, the last time I’d been hit by an explosion, I’d been nearly unscathed, and even though I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, I wasn’t nearly as hurt as I should be.

  Still, now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Now was the time to get the fuck out of here.

  I darted forward, grabbing the door leading to the balcony and tugged with all my might as the one overhead groaned ominously. Nothing happened. Despite my cording muscles and adrenaline-fueled strength, I couldn’t move the damned door an inch.

  “Fucking locks!” I snarled, and as I looked up at the balcony, I realized I was an idiot. Quickly whipping out my pad and pen, I wrote a few quick lines.

  Be fully healed.

  The balcony doesn’t fall.

  While the first one stayed, causing my injuries to miraculously heal, the second sentence faded away, letting me know that line hadn’t worked. Dammit. Panic surging up inside me as the groaning of steel girders grew louder, I tried again.

  The door in front of me is unlocked.

  Again, the words evaporated. How was that possible? I wasn’t sure, but as I looked overhead, I knew I was fucked. Or was I?

  Spinning on my heel, I grabbed a chunk of rock and hefted it while trying to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. Then I wrote another line.

  The glass breaks under the force of my throw.

  As the line solidified, I flung the rock as hard as I could at the glass door. It hit with a resounding crack, shattering into a bazillion pieces. Overhead the steel girders shrieked, and the sound of snapping bolts filled my ears. I was out of time.

  Taking a deep breath, I threw
myself through the broken door, and as I slammed into the marble floor inside, the balcony tore free completely. The shockwave from the crash rippled through my gut as stone and steel crashed into the spot where I’d been only a second ago. That had been close. Too close.

  And my pen hadn’t worked. Only, it should have worked in that situation. Maybe not with the balcony, but definitely with unlocking the door. Why hadn’t it?

  I wasn’t sure, but as I got to my feet, worry filled me. What about Marty and the girls? Were they okay?

  Taking another deep breath and patting myself down to make sure I was okay, I reached for my burner cellphone. The face was smashed, and I knew instantly it wouldn’t work. Hell, I even tried my pen on it, but once again, the line vanished.

  That pissed me off. I’d been able to fix my car with the stroke of my pen, so why couldn’t I fix a stupid phone? I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t make sense.

  Annoyed, I wrote down something else.

  Marty and the girls are okay.

  As the words solidified into truth, I let out a long breath. Finally, something was working. Now it was just a matter of going back up there, getting them, and escaping because as I stared at my pad, I noticed the line about people thinking I’d lost the pen had completely vanished.

  “Damn,” I muttered, trying to keep my shit together. “Just do one thing at a time. Concentrate, adapt, survive.”

  I took a step forward as the sound of a helicopter filled my ears. I barely had time to spin toward the sound when the Blackhawk opened fire on me, filling the room with thousands of rounds of lead.

  The first two shots shattered the bedpost right beside my head. Leaping to the side, I took cover behind the thick bed as more bullets cut the inside of the room to shreds. Fuck, what was going on?

  Swallowing hard, I gripped my pen in shaking hands and wrote a new line.

  Make them get hit by a missile strike.

  The line evaporated, and I cursed, trying everything from random meteors to EMPs while more bullets tore into the hotel room. Nothing worked. Clearly, something was keeping my pen’s powers from affecting the helicopter. Only… maybe I was going about it all wrong. Maybe I had to just be smarter.

  I couldn’t affect the helicopter directly, but maybe I didn’t need to affect it. No, I just had to stop them from shooting at me.

  Worse, I was running out of time. While I wasn’t sure how many bullets they had fired at me, but I was definitely getting the impression they were going with more is less. More wood broke off the heavy bedframe, and I wondered how long it would be until they hit me.

  “Hopefully forever,” I whispered to myself as I wrote a new line.

  Fill a ten by ten-meter area directly outside my window with angry, venomous spiders.

  The shooting stopped as screams erupted from the helicopter. Ears still ringing from all the gunfire, I peeked up over the edge of the bed.

  The entirety of the helicopter was just absolutely filled with black widows, brown recluses, and everything in between. More spiders plummeted from the air because they were nowhere near the helicopter itself, but those that were absolutely swarmed over the inhabitants. The sound of their screams filled my ears as the helicopter veered off course.

  That was unfortunate for them because a second later the helicopter smashed into the building. Stone met steel in a shriek of tortured metal before another explosion ripped through the horizon, spraying flaming shrapnel into the room.

  Ducking down, I huddled for cover as chunks of burning metal slammed into the walls all around me, but as the ringing in my ears faded, I realized I was all alone in the room. Getting slowly to my feet, I crept forward in time to see a grizzled guy with three days of stubble drop down on a rappelling cable. He landed on the rubble-strewn balcony. He caught sight of me as he released himself from his harness.

  Grabbing a grenade off his bandolier, he popped the spoon from the explosive before hurling it at me.

  Panic exploded through me, dialing up my senses to the max and making time seem to slow down as I used my pen as quickly as I could while hoping beyond hope that it would work.

  The grenade is a dud.

  As the grenade smacked into the wall in front of me and bounced to a stop at my feet, I nearly hollered in joy. The words didn’t evaporate. Thank fucking god.

  Trying to push down the terror at having been found by the guys who had taken down the midget, I grabbed the grenade. I whirled, throwing it back toward the guy before scratching out the line I’d written. The explosion practically shattered my eardrums, but that was fine because fuck that guy. As the entirety of the room filled with light, making me realize it’d been some kind of flashbang grenade designed to blind me. Had they come to capture me? Is that why all the bullets had missed?

  I wasn’t quite sure, but I didn’t care either way. It was time for some goddamned upgrades.

  Have ninja skills.

  Have super speed and strength.

  Unfortunately, only the first one stuck, and as I stared at it, I knew why. It was because super speed and strength weren’t real.

  Have the speed, strength, and reflexes of a highly trained navy seal.

  That one stuck, and it was a good thing too because, despite my trick with the grenade, I heard the sound of boots on the ground. Part of me wondered why no police or anything had come, why no one had come, but most of me didn’t care. I didn’t have time to care.

  There’s a loaded gun in the drawer.

  As I finished the words, I jerked open the dresser drawer to my left and saw what looked like a big black Desert Eagle. As I grabbed it, I realized I had no idea how to use the damned thing. Worse, I didn’t have time to write more. My ninja skills told me that much.

  Cursing myself for asking for ninja skills and not gunslinger skills, I spun around in time to see the first commando come toward me, Tazer in hand.

  I pulled the trigger, only nothing happened.

  Fuck.

  I did the only thing I could. I threw the gun at him. While I may not have been able to shoot the stupid thing, I was a damned fine ninja.

  The weapon sailed through the air, smacking into the side of the goon’s helmet with an earsplitting crack. As he stumbled sideways, I ducked back down in time to avoid a trio of gunshots that bounced off the wall. They were using rubber bullets. They weren’t trying to kill me.

  That was good, but I still didn’t want them to take me. Using the few seconds I’d bought myself, I grabbed my pen and jotted down another quick line.

  The floor is weakened and will break if anyone steps on it.

  The earsplitting crack of broken wood filled my ear, followed by a shriek as the whole front portion of the room gave way, crashing down into the room below and taking them with it.

  Good. That took care of that problem. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself when I heard gunshots in the hallway above. My friends’ hallway.

  27

  “Fuck,” I growled, turning to my notepad.

  Their door can’t be breached.

  The words disappeared almost before I finished writing them.

  The floor of the hallway above is a giant meat grinder.

  Again, it didn’t work. Was this the same problem as with the helicopter? I wasn’t sure, but either way, I didn’t have much more time.

  This time, I tried something that seemed to have worked before.

  Hungry jungle cats prowl the halls.

  The sound of roars filled my ears, but I ignored it, knowing it would buy me time to make some much-needed upgrades. Taking a deep breath, I set to work, writing as quickly as I could.

  Thankfully, most of the words stayed on the page, including Have expert skills over all firearms which worked out well when I jerked open the closet door and found a Benelli M4 Super 90 sitting next to a grappling hook.

  As I grabbed the shotgun, my door burst inward, breaking off its hinges and flying backward as dark smoke poured inside. Turning the Benelli on the door, I unloa
ded three rounds into the breach while backpedaling. My first blast caught the lead guy in the chest, flinging his bloody corpse back into his comrades.

  Bullets flew at me, but I ignored them as I pointed the grappling hook up at the hole in the ceiling and fired. The hook exploded out, slamming into the ceiling of the room above with a sharp crack that caused plaster to rain down on me.

  In an instant, I shot through the hole in the floor above, and as I dangled there, arm muscles straining, I glanced around the room. Finding no immediate enemies, I dropped to the floor, and as I hustled forward, I found Skye was huddled by the bed, hands clasped over her head.

  “We need to go now,” I said, holding one hand out to her as something in the room below exploded, letting me know the tripwire I’d set off had detonated.

  “What’s going on?” Skye asked, looking up at me with her big blue eyes. She was still naked, which made sense, but as I glanced back at the smoke rising through the hole in the floor, I knew I didn’t have time to take advantage of it.

  “People are trying to kill me,” I said as a sharp crack in the hallway beyond the room let me know the door had been breached. It was immediately followed by an explosion as the claymores I’d added to the doorframe filled the hallway with a billion steel balls. At least that was what was supposed to happen, anyway.

  “Why?” she asked at which point I ignored her and stepped into the main room, Benelli at the ready.

  “I don’t know.” I glanced back at her and nodded toward the dresser. “You’ll find an Uzi in there. You know how to use it, I’ve made sure of that, so help me.”

  “I’ve never even held a gun,” she said, swallowing hard as she opened the dresser. Then she pulled out the submachinegun, and as she did, knowledge flashed behind her eyes. “How?”

  “Too many questions for now,” I said as someone tried to breach the room. The Benelli put an end to him, spraying his life across the far wall.

  Gunfire tore through the walls, reducing them to swiss cheese, and I ducked behind the massive marble bar for cover. I had half a second to take a breath when I decided I didn’t actually want to fight them toe to toe.