Roland Tankowicz was once again in a bad mood. Astute chroniclers of the man’s emotional states might point out that he was often in a bad mood. Brave souls, possessed of courage in excess of intelligence, might go so far as to opine that all of his moods seemed to fall on a spectrum that ranged between ‘mild irritation’ and ‘homicidal fury.’ They would not be wrong, but this was a special case.
Specifically, his irritated state was wholly the responsibility of external actors, and not a function of his more general grouchiness. “I’ll give you that one for free.” His voice could be likened to the sound of a giant piece of industrial machinery as he growled the words through the evening rain. “The next one of you to try that shit is going to die screaming.”
The objects of his ire found themselves at an emotional and strategic crossroads. The seven young men dressed in black coveralls and hoods paused in mute wonder, minds boggling at what they had just witnessed and wishing with ardent furor that they had the time to engage in a conference to discuss it. In silent agreement, the men deduced that they did not, in fact, have this kind of time. Instead they gaped in slack-jawed stupidity, each waiting for another to do something brilliant or perhaps burst into some kind of spontaneous and effective action.
Roland sighed. It was a sad testament to his existence that the easiest way to tell if folks were new in town was to observe the type of weapons they employed in their inevitable attempt to kill him. This felt like the sort of thing that said a lot more about his life and his choices than anything else, though this was a probably not the best time to reflect upon it.
For instance, this stalwart crew of bravos was quite obviously not a local group. This was clear to Roland because he now sported eight neat little five-millimeter holes in his shirt. It was new shirt and it was unique in that it was a nice dress shirt that he actually liked. Tailored to fit his bizarre proportions, the garment resided well within the twin categories of ‘stylish’ and ‘expensive.’ Or it had until a group of black-clad fools decided to make an attempt upon his life, at least. It was now ruined, and somebody was going to have to account for that to Lucia. Roland was a brave man who had seen violent action on twenty different planets, and he was not volunteering for that dangerous duty. Acceding to tactical necessity, the big man decided that one of these poor, stupid, soon-to-be-maimed morons was going to be the one to do it.
His volunteer materialized in the form of frantic incoming bead fire from a dark shadow at the end of the alley. There was a disturbing constant in these interactions that remained a perennial mystery to the big man. A distressing proportion of these cagey killers and criminals, upon seeing exactly how inadequate small-arms fire was when applied to battling Roland, seemed convinced that employing more of the same would make a difference. Objectively speaking, there was no way that shooting Roland ten times or a hundred times was going to be any more effective than shooting him once. It simply did not matter. Roland’s skin was impervious to small arms, and his shirt could not get any more ruined than it already was. With a resigned sigh, Roland ignored the frenzied hail of hypersonic projectiles and charged.