Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

Taylor rolled his eyes and let out a long, dramatic sigh. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Molly raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Oh come on, every injury has a story.”

“I tripped,” he insisted with an exasperated grunt.

“I don’t believe you,” she cooed.

“You should.”

“I don’t.”

“Well you won’t believe the rest of the story either then.”

Molly peered at him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“Can we drop it? Please?” He was begging now, driven by pure desperation.

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“I told you! I tripped, and that’s the only believable part of the story. I tripped, sprained my ankle, and that’s it.”

Molly stared at him and her eyes bulged. The shine in her eyes dulled as she held her gaze, unblinking, for an uncomfortable pause.

“What?!” he coughed, throwing his hands up.

“Well now you HAVE to tell me what happened! What did you trip on?”

Taylor squinted at her, already sure of what she’d say next. After a moment he let out a lung full of defeat and said, “fine. I tripped on a shark.”

“Come on,” she laughed. “We’re in the middle of the mountains in Arizona. There are no sharks here.”

Taylor scowled at her and shook his head. “Told you. You aren’t going to believe me.”

“Alright, alright,” she said, holding her hands out defensively. “Let’s hear it. How did you trip on a shark?”

“Really, it was just most of a shark. It’s tail I think. The rest of it had exploded into chunks that…” Taylor sighed. “Have you ever seen how something big just explodes when it hits the ground at terminal velocity?”

Molly furrowed her brow while her eyes widened. “What?”

“Well, the shark landed right in front of me after falling out of the helicopter I was chasing.”

“A helicopter? Why were you chasing a helicopter? Why was it carrying a shark?” She stared incredulously at her friend, stammering and grasping for words. “Maybe you can just start at the beginning?”

Taylor rolled his eyes again and grumbled to himself. “Fine. It was supposed to be a normal day at work. I got up, showered, drove to the office, and started replying to emails.”

“OK,” Molly interjected. “Start where things started getting weird.”

“I’m getting there. Do you want the story or not?”

She shrugged. “I thought I did…” She smiled. “Yes, of course want the story. I need the story. Now spit it out!”

“Alright. Well one of the emails was from my boss. Wanted me to meet him in his office at 10, which, by the time I got the email, was just in a few minutes. So I got up and rushed to his office on the other side of the building.”

“Parker? Isn’t that his name?”

“Yeah, you know him. He’s the one that replaced Greg.”

Molly shuddered. Taylor had spent a lot of time complaining about Greg.

“So I knocked on Parker’s office and he had me take a seat. He seemed confused. He told me one of our long-time clients needed something unusual.”

“What, like a cool floor plan with lots of secret rooms and hidden passageways?” Molly smiled. She had been trying to get Taylor to design her a villain’s lair for years.

“No, nothing architecture related. Not exactly, anyway. They wanted someone who was familiar with the plans for the State Street building to come to a meeting, but they wouldn’t give any details about the meeting.”

“Huh,” Molly shrugged. “Seems harmless enough.”

“Sure, and since I had been part of the State Street contract my boss assigned me to attend. He said they’d be picking me up in a private helicopter in half an hour. He was nice about it, he apologized that he couldn’t help me prepare better for the meeting, but he trusted that I would be fine.”

“So does the sprained ankle count as an on-the-job injury then?” Molly grinned.

Taylor frowned at her and shrugged. “I have no idea. Before long I was getting strapped into a helicopter. I had no idea where we were going. I think we headed east, or west… It was close enough to noon that I couldn’t really tell by the sun and I quickly lost track of landmarks. I think we flew for an hour or so, then landed in some remote desert. There was a landing pad and a little shack.”

“This sounds like the plot of a stupid movie,” Molly complained. “Are you sure you’re not making some of it up?”

Taylor groaned and looked up at the ceiling, tilting his head back and clapping a hand to his face. “Do you want the story or not? First you say start at the beginning, then you say skip to the interesting part. First you say you don’t believe that I tripped, then you say you’ll believe me, then you say it sounds like a bad movie. I give up.” He got up and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Molly got up and grabbed his wrist. “I…” she searched his eyes. “I’m sorry. I believe you. It’s just… the whole thing sounds…”

“Unbelievable?” he offered. He shrugged. “I know. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Now that you’ve started you have to finish though. You can’t leave me hanging. What happened next?”

Taylor stared at her impassively for a moment, then let her pull him back down into his chair. “Fine.” He picked up his glass of ice water and took a sip. “The client, the owners of the State Street building, said that one of the businesses operating out of their property had gotten mixed up in something. They wouldn’t say what. They wanted me to help them get a tactical team of some kind onto the floor where this tenant was renting. I had brought the blueprints, so I showed them where all of the stairwells and elevator shafts were. They wanted to know where the air ducts ran and all kinds of other things. I showed them everything I could until, eventually, they seemed satisfied. Then I asked if they could bring me back to the office and this guy who seemed like some kind of elite military operative laughed at me. He said I had to go on the raid with them.”

“What? A raid?” Molly’s eyes were as wide as a full moon.

“Yeah,” Taylor laughed nervously. “I had no idea what was going on. They stuffed me into this little room with a half dozen commando-types, all kitted out with guns and bulletproof vests. They threw a vest on me, but it didn’t make me feel very safe, then they gave me a briefing or something. I don’t know, it was like they were talking in code. I didn’t get much. But at one point the guy in charge looked at me and said that the most important thing for me was the extraction at the end. When it was all over I would need to be at a certain location where a helicopter would lower a rope ladder for me to grab onto. They would reel me in and fly away. That was all I got.”

Molly stared at him intently, hanging on every word.

“So everyone loaded into a different, bigger helicopter and they flew us back to the State Street building in town. It was a super awkward flight, with all these hardened killing machines glaring at me like I didn’t belong.”

“Well you didn’t belong!” Molly cried, laughing nervously.

Taylor shook his head, chuckling. “Right? Anyway, the helicopter dropped us off a block away and the team leader told me to stay close to him. They entered the building and systematically made they way up to the appropriate floor. They had me show them where they could access some vents where they took off the cover and stuck some kind of robot or something inside. Then everything turned to chaos.” He grinned apologetically. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t know what was going on. The leader threw me to the ground, I heard gunshots and yelling. I think there was an explosion.”

“Wait wait wait,” Molly interrupted. “Wouldn’t that have made the news? I haven’t heard anything about something that big happening!”

“Whatever was going on was super secret. I think some very powerful people or organizations probably covered it all up. If we’re lucky we’ll get a news story about a fire in the building later, but I’m sure the whole story is never gonna make the news.”

“Well what happened next?” she asked eagerly.

“The next thing I remember is when the guy literally grabbed me and jumped out a window.”

“He jumped out a window?”

“Yeah. It was crazy. I was screaming and holding on to him for dear life. I was sure we were going to die. Eventually I realized he had some kind of rope he was holding and we just kind of glided down to the ground. The helicopter was already waiting nearby with some of the team onboard, but just before we made it to the rope ladder someone fired a rocket at the helicopter and it had to dodge, lifting the ladder out of reach. There was more gunfire and that’s when we started running after our ride. Then the shark fell out of the helicopter and slammed to the ground right in front of me, I tripped on it, sprained my ankle, and somehow ended up getting pulled up into the helicopter by the vest they had me wearing.” He sat back and folded his arms, staring at Molly with raised eyebrows. “So, there you go. That’s the story of how I sprained my ankle.”

Molly gazed at him in awe with a slack jaw and slightly parted lips. Her eyes subtly darted around, searching his face and processing what he’d said. At last a faint smile formed and she shook her head, looking down at her own glass of water. She chuckled, breathing out through her nose and playing with the straw.

“What?” Taylor asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

She looked back up at him and shrugged. “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly.

Taylor’s jaw clenched and he took in a long, deep breath. “Fine,” he said. “I took a bad step on the curb on my way to the parking lot after work,” he sighed.

Molly looked up at him, her gaze suddenly firm and steady. A devious grin cracked at the corners of her mouth. “Sure,” she said tersely.

Taylor leaned forward and sniffed the air. “Why do you smell like gunpowder and seafood?”

Molly’s grin spread into a defiant smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

[Reddit Post]