Shots Fired in the Melting Pot

by T. C. Clover

toward the photos on the classroom wall with his right thumb. “I need to see two forms of identification.”

  “What a bunch of cow crap!” Satoko lamented as she sat up straight in her blue and white striped shirt with an exaggerated smile to amuse the class.

  The FBI agent rolled his eyes as he approached the desk of the headmistress and waited for her to fish two forms of ID from her purse. John ran his fingers through his short black hair and watched the teacher fumble through her personal items for several seconds. Just when his patience was fading, the astute woman produced a social security card and California driver license. He took a moment to inspect the two forms of identification with great care and then gave them back to her.

  “Okay everyone, I have a few questions about your teacher, and please answer me honestly,” John instructed the class with his hands raised in the air like a politician. “How many of you have been here for over a year?” The agent watched with determination as more than half of the students raised their hands. “Okay, that’s great, and how many of you remember Headmaster Mary being here when you first arrived?”

  The same group of children raised their hands and kept them up high for the federal agent. Some of the students seemed to be holding back scathing laughter as a result of the man’s recent gaff. John took in a deep breath after this reaction from the students and turned to stare at Mary for more than thirty seconds.

  “She’s the headmistress; didn’t you see on her driver license that it says female? Why don’t you arrest her already so we can get back to our story time?” The Japanese woman decried as curls of black hair near the end of her bangs bounced around her face. “Just make sure that you have her back in time for our math lesson tomorrow. I don’t have the sort of head for math that a man would appreciate – too logical.”

  “I may be back to ask you more questions in the future,” John relayed to the teacher as he began to tread with caution toward the door. “Wait a minute,” he said with a sudden hunch, “let me see your right bicep.” The agent wheeled around and pointed his right index finger at the headmistress.

  The woman shook her head in irritation and turned her body sideways to expose her right arm. Mary was wearing black bib overalls with a white dress shirt, which went well with her black hiking boots. She rolled up the sleeve of the white shirt all the way to her shoulder, displaying pale, bare skin for the man. John looked at her clean bicep and nodded in affirmation.

  “Thank you, ladies and students; have a good day,” John said with a warm smile as he crept past Satoko on his way to the front door.

  The Japanese woman glared at the agent, and he stopped to look at her, raising his right eyebrow. Upon closer inspection, the woman seemed too stereotypical in her appearance and mannerisms - something was off. She smiled with old-world charm and raised her middle finger at him, causing the man to scoff and shake his head.

  "You know what, lady-" he began to speak but saw something metallic appear from beneath the woman's dress.

  John reached for his gun with precise movements, allowing his training to take over. Although his face was still drawn and pale from discovering that the Japanese woman was dangerous, he was alert.

  The FBI agent was shocked when a surgical steel blade penetrated deep into the thigh muscle of his left leg. He cried out from the invasive pain and simultaneously whipped the woman on the left side of her face with his pistol. She fell atop a little boy's desk in the front row, and the student made a panicked exit from the classroom, screaming and running with the rest of the children.

  Litz looked up from the desk at the FBI agent with a custom prosthetic mask hanging off of the right side of her face. The man's eyes narrowed when her deception came to light, and he raised his pistol with both arms, aiming at the center of her chest. He glanced upward at the doorway, hoping that his partner was coming to join him after checking the administrative records.

  "Drop the knife!" He commanded with a thousand-yard stare, repressing the desire to put pressure on his wound.

  In one swift motion, Litz leaped upward and smothered the agent's forearms with her upper body. This counterattack was a mistake, and the man fired three times in succession, causing her to shriek in agony when a bullet tore through to the femur bone in her left thigh.

  The wanted felon closed her eyes and dropped to the floor, gripping the front of her wounded leg and floundering among the desks. There was a copper smell from the blood, and it was making a sticky mess all over her fingers. She detected a gaping hole in her flesh and began to convulse as if she would vomit. The wound reported heat and a level of damage to her brain that she had never experienced in her life.

  "Oh my God! Litz!" Mary exclaimed from the front of the classroom. "I'm so sorry! You're bleeding! What do you want me to do?" The woman asked after taking a few deep breaths.

  "Call Mike-" Litz ordered with her mouth halfway obscured by the tiles on the floor. "Tell him to kill the other agent and get ready to leave."

  "You can't-" a weak male voice said through heaving, shallow breaths "-not my partner."

  Litz heard the desperate sounds of heavy breathing nearby and forced her body to roll from lying face down to an upright position. Her left leg served up sharp crystals of pain, causing her arms to shake during the strenuous movements.

  "Mike, we screwed up," Mary announced into a secure satellite phone. "Litz needs you to... take out the other agent. Yes, I'm sure. I don't know... send someone back here. Thanks."

  When Litz heard Mary calling Mike for help, it reminded her of the first time she cried out to him at the orphanage. Before he joined the CIA, Mike had been her protector, the only security guard that could make the ravenous boys behave.

  Mary set the phone on a desk and unbuckled her overalls, removing a long-sleeved shirt to use as a tourniquet around Litz's leg. Her curvy stomach and a gaudy pink bra made the situation seem suddenly too real for the new recruit. She looked toward the FBI agent while securing the shirt around her colleague's leg.

  John was straining for breath as he pulled at the handle on Litz's stainless steel throwing knife. The blood from his chest caused his fingers to slide all over the handle. He gazed at his pistol on the floor and back to the knife in his chest, trying to decide if revenge was a better option.

  "You killed innocent people!" The agent exclaimed to Litz with a passion that caused him fiercer levels of hurt.

  "The governmen' kills innocen' people ev'ry day," Litz replied with a pale face and blank stare. "They took my mom."

  The agent looked away from his pistol and grabbed at the handle on the knife, pulling it upward with both hands. Mary slid the gun away from him and closed her eyes, grabbing Litz by the right hand. There was a sound of choking and suffering as the man's lungs filled with blood. Without the knife in place to block the flow partially, the life-giving fluid became deadly. Both women turned their faces away and began to cry, breathing in an exasperated rhythm.

  "Mother's wrath-" Litz muttered to Mary as she heard members of her team entering the room to provide assistance. "I wan- wand'd to go with her." The young woman felt the world shifting beneath her like the steady jolt of a roller coaster making its first descent, and then there was nothing.

  XX. PhD in FML

  November 7th, 2056

  Richard felt crisp ice snap underfoot as he ambled at a steady pace toward a Brooklyn, New York high school to cast his vote. Freezing rain from the previous night had left the streets glossed over in a thin but sturdy cocoon of white ice. Every step he took reported with a sharp crackle and the air surged forth and retreated in a biting wind chill. He felt his nose beginning to burn inside and wondered if the promises made by his presidential candidate of choice were worth the journey. There was a stagnant resentment that Richard maintained for all liberals. This prejudice haunted him after a traumatic hospital stay, and for the past six months, he had remained wary of anyon
e who showed too much spirit.

  The young man decided that his Nunn Bush walking shoes were a poor choice for the slippery surfaces. Despite the aesthetic appeal of their brown leather, his legs were taking a beating on the sidewalk as he slipped every few inches. The television star was grateful for his gray wool pants and a black hoodie that kept strangers from pointing out his celebrity status. Richard didn’t mind being somewhat famous during the first season of the television show, but becoming the survivor of a bombing took matters to a ridiculous level. Although he had found a new friend in weightlifting, the unanticipated temptations led to a new lady friend almost every day of his life. The brawny conservative felt guilty for all of his womanizing over the past few months, but his therapist told him that it was a way to deal with posttraumatic stress. Richard smiled as he wondered what the Catholic priests would say, or how his employer would react if they found out he had become a scoundrel again.

  “You’re Richard Orton,” a forty-four-year-old man stated as he pointed a weathered finger at the television star. “You’re the guy that bedded down with that psychopath Litz Rack,” he added in a gruff tone and gripped the front of Richard’s hoodie with both hands. “She burned Americans alive! How could you be with a woman like that?