October 01, 2012

No. 209

Bozeman struggled to recall if anything good had ever happening to him in the middle of a rainstorm. He couldn’t remember a single instance. Right now, the situation was unravelling in such a way that he didn’t picture a happy outcome for this one, either.
The deluge was hammering down so intensely that Bozeman imagined that he could almost hear it, despite the thick concrete roof. “Three more weeks and I would have been out of here, too,” he grumbled to the cactus and the goldfish he’d brought with him from the Mainland for company.
The water had now flooded to his ankles, and Bozeman had just about resigned himself to drowning when the sharp hiss of the radio demanded his attention.
“This is Juliet Base. Over,” he told the handset.
“Roger, Juliet Base, this is Control. Stand by to receive reinforcements. Over,” was the metallic reply.
Bozeman paused before acknowledging the message. Reinforcements? Why would they send anybody else all the way out here?
“Negative. Negative, Control. I need evac, not reinforcements. Over,” he told his handlers.
“Copy, Juliet. ETA for reinforcement is seventeen minutes. Over.”
A chill coursed through Bozeman’s body that was unrelated to the warm pool now lapping at his knees. If the transport was due in seventeen minutes, it had been launched hours before the rain had even started. Nothing good was on its way.
Bozeman sloshed his way to the shelf with the cactus and pushed the desert plant aside. He reached up behind the spines and pulled down a vicious-looking knife. If Control didn’t want to play nice, he’d be ready. He tucked the weapon into his belt, and turned to his aquatic friend’s bowl.
“Hold the fort, little buddy,” he told the oblivious fish.
Then Bozeman opened the hatch and crawled out into the pounding tempest.

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