Traffic was not a problem moving at my speed and it gave me a little more practice syncing up with that speed. Figured a few more races cross country would have me all nice and calibrated like Daimon had said. Dammit I hate when he’s right. Luckily, he’s not infallible or I wouldn’t have landed in Detroit.

I kept it down a little for two reasons, the first was the most important … I didn’t want to burn out a quarter of the way across the country and end up looking for a probably cheap no-tell-motel for a nap. Did that the first time I did the coast-to-coast thing and had to spin dry to get rid of the bedbugs. So, keep it down under Mach 25 or so.

The second reason was … well … I AM traveling over Mach one so there’s this thing called a sonic boom. The good part is, I’m not very big, only 5’5” and a hundred pounds, and coupled with my ‘slick suit’ I don’t make that big of a boom. It is enough though to break windows. That means I gotta detour a lot to miss buildings, cars, trucks, people, animals, anything breakable. Adds a little time to my trip. Still make it in about ten minutes, Detroit to LA.

I dropped out of warp as the lights of LA began to overpower the night to cruise into the city at a sedate ninety then I remembered Daimon had packed my shit and moved me out of my basement apartment. I came to a stop behind a 7-11 and changed to normal clothes. I needed a Big Gulp and something hot and junk foodie.

Soon as I stepped through the door, I realized this wasn’t my part of town. Half a dozen heads turned to watch me make my way to the back and the fountain machines. Not being egotistical or nothin’, but I’m used to bein’ the center of male attention most any place I go but it took me a second to refocus on base time movement and realize three of the guys watching me were holding shotguns. Shit. I put up my hands.

“Hey, just wanted a Big Gulp,” I said.

“Get your ass over here,” one guy growled at me, waving the barrel of his hand cannon at me.

Closer was what I needed so I took a couple steps his way. When I was about equal distance from all three I stopped. I’d been wanting to try this. I grinned.

“What you smilin’ at, bitch?”

Blink. My backpack was stuffed with shotgun shells. The double barrel had been a bit more awkward then the two pump action. I mean, I had to break it open, pull the shells and close it while the guy was holding the damn thing. With the pumps, just a couple jerks on each and the shells popped out for me to catch. They knew something had happened, they couldn’t help it, they’d felt the guns moving.

Me? I just turned my back on them and stepped up to the fountain, pulling a Big Gulp cup free and setting it into place under the ice dispenser. The clunk of the ice dropping into the cup broke the trance. The guy with the double barrel pulled both triggers.

Click click.

This cause the other two to pull triggers. Click, Click, kerchunk, kerchunk. Both tried to rack in a new shell. I moved the cup to the Coke nozzle.

“Da fuck?” Double barrel broke it open and found both empty.

His two buddies both pumped their weapons at least four times, no shells popped out.

“Looking for these?” I had lined up twelve 12 gauge shotgun shells in a neat little row down the counter. Before they could react, each was touched across the throat by the lipstick I held up. Hands touched throats and came away with a red mess. The lipstick tube had changed when they looked back at me. I slowly opened a straight razor. “I suggest you drop your weapons and lay face down on the floor … or I can do the same thing with this.” The florescent light glinted off the steel of the blade.

Took me a split second to relieve them of their guns and another few seconds for their brains to catch up to what was going on. Then there was another ten or fifteen seconds for them to process the little girl with the straight razor and their guns laying at her feet. From there, they kissed the floor pretty fast. I used some heavy duty nylon zip ties to bind their hand together in the small of their back, then for good measure, I zipped their ankles together.

I heard the sirens as a placed the Big Gulp on the counter along with a dozen of taquitos.

“What do I owe you?”

The girl still had her hands up. She shook her head. “Nothing, it’s free.”

“No thanks!” I said and dropped a $20 on the counter.

Five minutes later I unlocked the door to my motel room and shrugged off the backpack. The Gulp and taquitos had taken the edge off and I needed to bitch out Daimon. Wasn’t really concerned that it was 3 am…