The gnome, Rolf Jørgensson, lay on the wet pavement, the falling rain drops blurring his vision no matter how fast he blinked. The smell of expended ammunition, and good weed, hung in the air, fading under the relentless drizzle. The ground beneath him thumped to an aggressive tempo, causing the puddles of water surrounding him, mixed with his own blood, to jump and oscillate to the beat. Beside him lay his blue pointed hat, soaked with blood and water. Above him he saw a bright, orange-tinted light. Not some ethereal doorway to a waiting afterlife; it was a streetlamp, one of many spaced along the remote walkway, its halogen bulb filling the ever-shrinking circle of his peripheral vision.

He was dying. An unseen anvil weighed heavy, and unmoving, on his chest. His guts burned. His arms and legs flailed around like mindless flippers. It was all the bullets. Lots of bullets. They’d come from everywhere.

Started with those red hat wearing Chicago punks. The NaSnitch-Ez concert at the St. Louis Chaifetz Arena played on neutral ground. Both coasts agreed the rapper’s tracks were righteous and straight up legit. The Los Angeles and Chicago crews meeting quickly evolved into a celebration. Music, booze and lots of women. A party to bury the old grudges.

Rolf, or “G-Raff” to his crew, lay gasping for breath outside the arena filled with his favorite music. Why had he come to the remote corner behind the loading docks? They’d all slipped out to get high. Everything righteous, a party mood. Laughing and joking. Their East coast crew in blue, and his West coast family sporting red, joking and playing the dozens. St. Louis was Switzerland, like on the old continent, for the two rival groups. A place to settle their differences and enjoy the local culture.

The mood changed at some point. Someone from the Chicago crew, sporting a blue hoodie with Bob Marley silk-screened on it, had stepped out, rolled up to G-Raff, pumping his finger into G’s face.

“Yo, Tallee, you da one? You da bitch that iced my man Johan in Vegas? That yo’ punk-ass move? Over some ho? That why he dead?”

The East coast thug’s nose was as red as his conical hat, bright against his Scandinavian skin, his ginger beard quivered. His green eyes intense, and focused, on G-Raff.

G-Raff had stopped listening after being called Tallee. He could only muster a “Huh, whassup, dawg?” in response.

“Dat what I thought. You is him. You need ta pay fo’ your transgress,” the East coast banger said, drawing a small automatic pistol from inside his deep front jacket pocket; “Ya gon’ pay da toll now, bitch.”

“Damn, a .380 Bodyguard with Crimson Trace,” G-Raff had thought as his eyes drifted down from the small black auto’s barrel to the red dot in the center of his chest.

“Whoa, homie, ain’t no cause for dat. We on a truce. Yo, I don’t know what your beefin’ about,” Rolf said, hands held up and relaxed. What the hell had happened? He knew he had to keep talking, figure out why the Chi-town thug was going crazy. He needed to say something. His mind went to his crew. Why weren’t Stitch, or Ham-Z, their crew leaders for the trip, stepping up to throw shade on the conversation? Why hadn’t they come to his defense and put that Chi-town punk in his place?

And then the shots came. Yes, the bullets hurt. Other shooters from the Chi-town crew pulled and joined in. G-Raff was rolling clean, just like their parlay dictated. No weapons. He had a blade or two, but no artillery. The bullets hit hard. And then his West coast crew drew their heat and fired back as they ducked and dodged. Blue hats moved away from Rolf. His crew had known to ignore the agreement, but nobody had told him.

He felt the impacts in his back.

Those bullets hitting him from behind hurt the most. They burned with betrayal, and something more. Magic and iron. Fired by someone in his crew to make sure he didn’t survive. Clarity came at that moment. A sacrifice to settle a beef. He’d never been to Vegas but knew who had. Stitch. His trusted brother had bragged about taking down a Chi-town bitch when he’d come back to their East LA bunker.

The shots slowed and stopped as he fell. Folks were yelling shit back and forth. Cooler heads took over. He’d heard the crews talking and making peace. He’d groaned. Somebody spat on him. It all ran together, voices echoed and watery. A misunderstanding? A score settled? They slapped each other’s backs and walked away. A tenuous truce reached over his gurgling dying objections and his unintelligible proclamations of innocence. They agreed he’d been the problem and “bid’ness” needed to commence. With the hit on G-Raff, there was no more Vendetta. The East coast crew was ready to talk to his Westie homeboys. Rolf’s head swam. Rain fell harder and his vision blurred again.

The thump-thump of the concert called to them and they left him alone.

Rolf, formerly G-Raff, stared at his new friend, the streetlight, waiting for it to blink out of existence, taking him with it. That didn’t bother him. A gnome’s thug life comes with an expiration date. He’d accepted the truth of his lifestyle long ago. In his mind, he’d was going to go out making a final stand for his crew, or popped by a jealous boyfriend. Not as a framed-up bitch.

Tallee. That bothered him almost as much as the constant physical pain he was in. A slur. The worst for his kind. Gnomes hated tall folks, and he was tall for a gnome. Most of his people were 12”-15” in height, 18″ with their ever-present hats. He was a hair over 20” without a hat. That’s why Rolf Jørgensson got the name “Giraffe” as a kid, when he was a punk wannabe. He worked hard to prove himself and became “G-Raff” when he got his street cred by taking down a Chupacabra that had moved into their East LA hood. G-Raff thought they’d accepted, or at least overlooked, his height. As the streetlight became a blurry small ball, he knew he’d been wrong.

Seconds seemed like hours. His heart pounded in his chest, his breathing ragged. The ball of light became a dot of light.

Noise. Steps. Yelling. What were those new lights? Whose face is that? What was she saying? The dark came on. That shit still hurt.

*****

Rolf Jørgensson awoke with a start. He was sweating and his hands roamed over his body, brushing the numerous pucker marks on his skin from the old wounds. Wounds that should have healed clean if the ammo had been “normal”. Some of the rounds were enchanted with dirty Fey magic. If the people that found him hadn’t known how to counteract it, he’d have died a long, painful, and lingering death.

He scowled. Betrayed by his fellow Westies over turf, who were also betraying their race by conducting business with the dirty Fey. And he took a hit for some shit he wasn’t even a part of? Traitors, one and all. His face felt warm as his mind went to vengeance.

“Ease up, homie,” he thought as he remembered the counseling sessions with Dr. Forester. Nice lady. Her lessons had helped. Not cured, but helped. His body healed, but his soul had a dark spot on it. He took some calming breaths. He hadn’t been G-Raff since his arrival. Just Rolf or “Jørgs” to his teammates. And the gnome asset to his masters, the Feds.

The dreams still came, but St. Louis had been two years ago. Barely worth a mention for his long-lived race, but a lot had happened in between. The doctor and her team had saved him, but that effort had come with a price tag. It was steep, but one he had lived with. He had paid it in full over the last 24 months.

“Twenty-four and hit da door,” he said to himself, as he swung his legs over the edge of his bed. He was in a full size human dorm room that felt cavernous to him. He occupied a small corner of it.

He’d been a virtual slave, doing dangerous things for the government. Technically he had enlisted, but he really didn’t have a choice. Saying no meant a trip to the secret lab and an exit in a body bag. He stuck to his side of the bargain to earn his physical and legal freedom. It sucked, but that was the deal. And now it was over. He reached toward his tiny night stand and fingered the silver coin he’d been given by the head of the secret agency. His “get out of jail free” card. Or exemption coin. Whatever. Just glad he no longer had to dress in the tiny “agent” suit or the mini-tac gear. Now he would make that coin part of a rocking-ass chain that would be the envy of any thug.

Exemption. Official. No longer a moving target for greedy hunters or government agencies. And he could wear some decent threads and go out to party with somebody that didn’t flash a fucking badge. Maybe.

He hopped off the bed and climbed the tiny staircase up to the government issue sink and mirror. The face that greeted him looked odd. Clean shaven. His blond beard a distant memory. Even the female gnomes had some sort of facial hair, but his was gone. And he kept it that way. The agency doctors had shaved it during his multiple surgeries and he’d kept up the habit after he healed. No beard, and unlike the rest of his kind, he sported a crew cut. A reminder he wasn’t part of the gnome community anymore. They’d deserted him. He was something else now.

“If they knew, they’d be shakin’ in dey boots, bitches,” he said, rubbing his smooth chin, knowing there was a security cam in his warded room. The wards were there to make sure he didn’t go wandering about the facility without supervision. No popping in and out of the hundreds of locked door rooms, basement cells or hermetically sealed labs. Lots of secrets in that complex.

The popping. That’s why they’d given him a second chance and offered him the deal. No other gnome had ever taken the deal. The little people were too gangster. No snitches. Don’t cooperate with the man.

He flared his arms and threw his chest out toward the mirror. “Fuck the Westies,” he said with intensity. And he meant it.

“Whatever, ignorant ass thugs,” Rolf said aloud, shaking his head and reaching for his toothbrush. He brushed, rinsed, spit and smiled, giving his reflection the double “finger guns” move, then flashing a Westie sign. He frowned at the habit. “Bitches. I done killed shit that woulda ate all yo punk asses fo’ breakfast. And I looked good doin’ it. Now that’s gangsta.”

Gnomes like Rolf weren’t just tiny people. They were special. Besides being small, even a giant like him, they were virtually silent and naturally curious. Others might say compulsively nosey.

And why wouldn’t they be? They can use their connection to the Fey realm to pop into, and out of, the human plane of existence. Anywhere they want, or just about. His handlers thought it was magic. They were half right. It‘s magic and physics. Micro-worm holes and phase gates. Gnomes could phase to the Fey realm and its nearest “underground” tunnel. Gnomes had been digging and building a massive network of tunnels in the Fey realm’s essence, and linking the exits to bridge points in the human plane. Hundreds of thousands, if not a million, of them over the last few millennia.

As children, gnomes played in the tunnels and learned how to travel through them. They developed their sense of direction, improving their night vision and navigating to the desired exit point in the human realm. After their first trip into the Fey realm, they always knew how far they were from a tunnel entrance, no matter where they were. Time was relative between dimensions, so it looked like they disappeared on Earth and reappeared almost instantly somewhere else. In fact, it may have taken hours or days in the Fey realm to move through the tunnels.

Like all gnomes, Rolf could make an instant temporary tunnel for a short distance. A skill they develop to get to the old tunnels, but still useful in the human realm. They called it popping. That was the “special thing” his handlers appreciated. If he’d been to a place within his casting range, or could see where he needed to go, he could access it.

Unless he had to cross a Ley line to get where he wanted. No popping across those. The casting lost energy when it intersected the Ley line’s “field”. Just like every other Gnomes, he’d find an existing tunnel entrance to the Fey realm, physically move in the human realm, or take man-made transport, across the lines. The other thing that would stop a pop were wards. Intricate spells permanently cast by drawing ancient symbols in a pattern around an area and then pouring magic energy into them. Nothing magic goes in, nothing magic comes out. Only a few casters could throw the old magic, but those that could were a pain in the ass. They stopped other spells, or nosy gnomes, from prying.

His current quarters had them. Wards laid across the inside walls, setup by a pro. The Feds only hire the best.

Except for him. Rolf wasn’t proficient moving through tunnels, but he was the first gnome he knew of that had taken the Feds deal. Walking tall, especially for his race, was a hindrance as Rolf used his talents. When he traversed tunnels in the Fey realm, he had to stoop in the older ones. Some required he do an extended duck walk, or crab crawl, to keep from bumping his head or scraping his broad shoulders. Even the tunnels he created, when popping, wouldn’t let him walk entirely upright. That was his curse. It’s also why he had strong thigh and lower back muscles.

His mood darkened. The tunnels.

During his recent missions, that required traveling the old tunnels, a new hindrance had reared its ugly head. He didn’t inform his handlers, but over the last six months, he’d seen warnings as he traversed the Fey realm.

Painted or scraped tags. “G-R/Pass4now.” And the letters D and C with a line through them. That message was clear. “G-Raff pass for now, but not after you get discharged”. Someone figured out that he was alive and who he worked for. They wouldn’t fuck with him as along as he was working for the feds, but the day he was discharged, he was no longer welcome in the tunnels. He’d be hunted. He’d seen tags at entryways on just about every tunnel he had used of late, East and West coast.

“Fuck those taggin’ bitches, ain’t shit ta me,” he said as his thoughts came to his recent excursions. He’d looked forward to catching someone in the process of tagging. Someone he might owe an ass-whipping, but as soon as he would enter a tunnel, they seemed to clear out until he passed. Since he was usually on a mission or deadline, he never stopped to look around.

A visit to his old hood, or the Chi-town thugs, would’ve been off mission, and he was told it would revoke his active status. That would have been bad. Very bad. The last two warnings he’d seen in the crossings had included his actual discharge date, so they were good guessers, or they already knew.

“What the fuck happened?” he said aloud, shaking his head as he began doing sit-ups. He needed to burn off some energy.

Above his room, physically and operationally, was a secret agency that ran a secret program that had another secret program under it where he actually worked. His head hurt thinking about the layers of humans, and security, that oversaw him. That shit should have been enough to keep his presence on the down low. But the fact that he’d survived the concert ambush was out in the real world.

Had some baddie he took down snitched on him? Or some wannabe spotted him?

“Don’t matter none,” he grunted. “Shit’s real and ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.”.

“So, grumpy Rolf, what are you going to do next?” a pleasant female voice asked, surprising him.

Rolf had completed the “Up” portion of his sit-up and used the position to push off. He sprung backward into a roll, pushing off the floor with his hands and landing facing the voice. He hands out in front, fingers spread, balanced over his feet. His Fed appointed Krav Maga instructor would’ve been proud.

He relaxed when he saw who had spoken.

“The G don’t stand for grumpy. Ain’t no dumb-ass fairy-tale dwarf. And humans ain’t supposed to be able to sneak up on a gnome,” he replied, breathing easier and dropping his hands.

He reached over to his bed and pulled on a tank top with Tupac Forever RIP silk-screened across the front. He’d torn off the “Gar-Animals” tag months ago.

“Really? Shouldn’t you be used to quiet humans by now?” the woman in the white lab coat asked, as she knelt and sat on the floor in a fluid motion, tucking her legs to the side. Her silk skirt didn’t wrinkle or crease at all. “Anything you want to talk about?”

He narrowed his eyes at the woman’s question. She was a Fed doctor named Forester. Shrink. Always probing and analyzing what he said, watching his reactions. This conversation had a different tone than their usual banter. He saw that she’d sat right under his in-room camera. The one they wanted him to know about. He’d also found at least two others hidden in the walls and a number of microphones. He looked up toward her. Even though she sat, he was eye level with the bottom of her chin.

“Not feelin’ it today, Doc, a’yight? l’s getting’ ready to hit it. Adios to the Fed suits. New page and all dat,” Rolf replied, flexing his muscle-bound arms, his pale skin taut over bulging veins. His old ink looked fresh, stretched over newly built muscle. Rolf would miss his workouts in the well-equipped facility gym. “I gotz twenty-fo’ months of G-7 civil service back-pay burnin’ a hole in my drawers. Gonna buy a ride, maybe some threads. Head to the club and make it rain. I ain’t sure of the ‘sitch, but a trip to the old hood to visit my homies.”

“We both know that’s not going to end well,” Dr. Forester said, her emerald eyes flaring, but softening to show concern. “It’s part of your discharge condition. Chicago and LA are off limits. At least for now. And you can’t commit any crimes. That’s instant revocation. You agreed to that. We need to talk.”

“One last session to pick my brain? I told you, I can’t take no human into the Fey tunnels. Jus’ bein’ dis tall fucks my shit up. ‘Sides, even yo skinny white ass won’t fit. And your electronic bullshit is useless in there. So da’s dat.”

“Yes, we’ve gone over that. I mean we need have a real discussion. Now,” Dr. Forester said, her voice becoming melodic, musical and attractive.

The hairs on Rolf’s arm rose. The room smelled of ozone and lilacs. A charge was in the air, then a pit formed in his stomach. There was the sensation of falling. He looked around and saw Dr. Forester still sitting calmly, but the room bathed in a blue-violet light and the walls crackling with energy. Dr. Forester’s eyes had turned white as she mumbled in a familiar, but incomprehensible, tongue. An ancient language.

He looked up at the bottom of his own feet. Above Rolf, the ceiling was the floor of his room, transparent, and another him was animated, moving its arms and talking to someone in his room. Rolf looked back above Dr. Forester and saw a clone of her, still in the real room, nodding attentively toward his clone.

“Fucking castin’ Fey bitch. You glamour me? Some sort of goddamn elf? Why didn’t I smell you sooner?” he said, stepping back from her. She finished her incantation and her blank white eyes stared at him.

“Actually, I’m half old-world elf. The ones loyal to the court that stayed in the Fey realm,” she replied. “Oh, and my other half is split between human and siren.”

Rolf felt drawn to her and very comfortable with her as she spoke the last. Warm. Open. Like he might even love her. He shook his head and clapped his hands together, releasing energy to shake her magic.

“Okay, what the fuck’s yo’ game? I’m out. Time ta bounce,” Rolf said, hands held in front of him, his fingers crackling as he made ready to pop a tunnel.

“Won’t work. Wards, remember?” Dr. Forester said calmly, pointing her finger skyward at the transparent ceiling, twirling them in a circular motion.

“Then how you doin’ dis’ bullshit?” he asked waving his hands around their sunken hidden room.

“They’re my wards,” she said. “I’m the resident Fey. I make the magic jail bars. This room is in a pocket between the realms. Look, Rolf, I just want to talk, no tricks. Sorry for the charade, but we needed privacy from prying eyes and ears. This is the only way.”

“Yeah, right. Does they know you can do dis’ shit?” He asked, nodding his head upward. “The Feds?”

“They know I have potential. Since I haven’t manifested anything of significance, they believe my multiple racial origins limit my abilities. They’re content to keep me within arm’s length while I serve my purpose with recruits. I did with you.”

“Ya, you did, but––bitch did you game my mind? I’ll fucking cut you!” Rolf said, reaching around his waist to where his sheathed M9 combat knife was normally strapped. It’d been customized to fit his small hand and had some of his own personal touches.

He grabbed nothing but air as he realized he was still in his gym shorts and the knife was on his nightstand a good five feet above his head.

“Yes, I influenced you,” she replied. “At first. To calm you, but I haven’t for over a year and a half. You’ve come into your own, and done most of it on your own.”

“Straight up word?”

“Straight up,” she said, nodding with a smile. “You’re your own man, Rolf Jørgensson. I’ve watched you mature and let go of a lot of anger. Those sessions were real. Just like the good you did in the field. I knew how you felt about the Fey, so kept it to myself. But here I am. Now you know. Can we talk or not?”

“Sure,” Rolf replied relaxing his shoulders and bopping his head. “Ain’t no thang to jaw a minute and if yo’ full of shit, I jez walk on out of here.”

“Good,” she replied. Her eyes stayed white. “There are three things I want to say, then we must get back. First, you’re being tracked across the Ley lines. Whenever you cross, from either side of them.”

“Fuck. Fo realz? Who? How?”

“Yes, for real. It’s Fey magic,” she said. Rolf’s eyes narrowed again. “Not mine. I couldn’t even trace it. They’re probably using an artifact to maintain it. Anyway, every time you came back from a mission where you crossed the tracker, I could smell it. I reported it, so the bosses know, but I was told not to worry you with it.”

“Secrets having secrets, keepin’ a tallee down. Homies are cold,” Rolf said tapping his chest twice with his fist.

“So, if you’re going anywhere you don’t want to be known, you need to get across a Ley line unseen. Maybe find a witch or hide in a troll caravan. I don’t know. Do something though, or don’t cross them.”

Rolf shook. Troll caravans were the worse. They smelled, their vehicles were always old junk and the stuff they hauled was disgusting or highly illegal. They were also very effective at moving around under the radar and dealing serious contraband.

“Yeah, that makes sense. Not the troll things, but the crossing. I’ll think o’ something. Oh, they’z, been tags in the tunnels aimed at me. Tellin’ me ta get the fuck out.”

“Rolf, I wish you’d told me sooner,” she said, a genuine caring in her voice. “That puts us on to the second thing. I want to tell you that the LA and Chicago groups are aware of your impending return. I don’t know who is playing who, but I was blind copied on an email that confirms both groups are in the loop as part of some security deal they cut. West coast and East coast are doing targeted stealth searches of incoming cargo containers for DHS, looking for an artifact or something. That part was redacted. All hush-hush. But the deal was right there. All they wanted was gold coins and to know when, and where, you’d be released.”

“Now that’s the third time I been betrayed by the folks that supposed to be lookin’ out for me. First my LA homies, then Agent Barnes on that Denver op and now the mother fucking Feds they’selfs. What’s a tallee gotz ta do ta get a little respec’?” Rolf asked, walking in a circle waving his arms, then flippin’ a bird to the sky. “I might as well slide down Hollywood B, wit’ a target on my chest, and get this shit o’er wit’.”

“That’s not really an option, is it?” Dr. Forester asked rhetorically, frowning. “I’d like to think you did all of this for a reason. You deserve a reward. A future. That brings me to item 3. Your actual out. The one place you can do some good, get shelter, make a living and neutralize both groups of your old associates. They’ll never fuck with you again.”

Rolf’s eyes went big, and he smiled. He’d never heard the Doc cuss before. He laughed, “Word. What I got to do?”

“Well, I have relatives that owe me a favor and know some folks. Have you ever considered living down South?”

******

The plane shook slightly. And then again more violently. Eighteen months ago, Rolf would have grabbed his seat belt and looked around nervously. Now, air travel was old hat.

“So, little man, what are your plans when we land?” Agent Barnes asked.

“To get as far away from you fuckin’ people as possible,” Rolf replied without looking to the agent.

Barnes was skinny except for a beer belly. He looked perpetually six months pregnant. Thinning hair, swollen nose from drinking. He was in his well-worn “Fed-suit”. Frayed cloth, cheap tie, and sweat-stained collar. Their destination wasn’t an op, or meant to be one. The feds were taking an asset home, said asset having competed his obligation. Even their transportation was without fanfare. Not a C-130 or military transport plane of any sort. Just a Beechcraft Premier IA business class jet they had signed out for the run.

Rolf should’ve been tense. He knew what was waiting for him. The flight from Washington DC to St. Louis crossed four Ley lines. Rolf felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. It was like a beacon to whoever’d been tracking him. They probably already had his arrival time and each tripwire he flew through confirmed his progression toward whatever fate awaited him.

Dr. Forester sat across from him, reading a magazine and occasionally looking up to smile at him. She was pretty, for a human. Or mostly human. Brown hair with violet tint. Tall and built. Curves that would have made her a Hollywood staple. Rolf liked his women with a little meat on their bones, nice amount of junk in the trunk, and a touch of facial hair. And not three and a half times his height.

“How’s it feel to go out without your tac gear?” Barnes asked. He must know, Rolf thought to himself. Barnes screwed the pooch on that Denver op and now he was walking Rolf into a grinder with a smile on his stupid fed face.

“An O.G. gotta be street,” Rolf said, nodding his head up and down. ”Didn’t need that hardware ta roll befo’, don’ need dat shit now. Not that a tallee goin’ ta’ his crib wouldn’t mind havin’ a little somethin’-somethin’ to keep the meth heads from jackin’ his shit, know what I’m sayin?’”

Agent Barnes just stared back, not knowing how to respond. “Well, best of luck to you then.”

“You a punk, Barnes,” Rolf thought to himself.

Dr. Forester rolled her eyes at Barnes and looked back to Rolf. He wondered if she read minds too. Just in case, Rolf shrugged, threw his hands out, palms up, giving her his best “innocent me” look as he tilted his head with a smirk.

“We’re on final approach. On the ground in ten minutes,” the pilot said over the intercom. ”Please make sure your seat belts are secure.”

Fifteen minutes later the jet had parked in an open hangar. They’d landed at St. Louis Regional, not the big International airport. The hangar was at the end of the row of private corporate storage buildings, facing East toward a farm field and a few stands of trees. The pilot came out of the cockpit, opened the door and stood back. Agent Barnes joined him on the opposite side of the exit.

Rolf sighed, jumped out of his seat and grabbed a Fuzzy Monkey Backpack, slipping his hands through the monkeys looped arms that served as straps. He shifted it onto his back and snapped the belt around his midriff. He reached over his shoulder and patted Fuzzy Monkey on the head for luck. He had chosen it because it was made to survive the abuse doled out by the average 5-year-old, it expanded and it was black. Plus the monkey looked mean as shit with an “X” where one of its eyes should be. Dr. Forester smiled, reached down and cupped his face between her hands.

“If you need anything, Rolf, call me,” she said, offering him her card. “I’m not your official therapist anymore, but we can talk any time. I want you to succeed.”

“Yo, thanks doc. Sure thing,” Rolf replied. “G-Raff better get his roll on. Peace.”

On that last word, Rolf threw up the two-fingered sign and walked through the open doorway out onto the first step. He hopped down each step, in succession, until he landed on the concrete hangar floor. He saw a door at the back of the hanger with a lighted “EXIT” sign above it. He turned to walk to it.

The hair on Rolf’s arm stood up. There was a popping noise.

Two gnomes ran into view, out of thin air, in front of him, one to the left, one to the right. They wore black hoodies. Bandannas covering the lower half of their faces. Under one hoodie, a red cone hat, under the other blue. Each wore mirrored shades. They also came strapped. Two Beretta BU9s pointed at him, held thug style. The .380 isn’t a powerful round, but with two full magazines, they had sheer volume on their side. Multiple hits were going to create shock. If they followed their previous pattern, there were Fey and iron oxide rounds mixed in.

“This time you gonna stay dead, motherfucker,” one of them said. Rolf recognized the voice. And then the shots rang out, the rounds hitting the beardless gnome, wearing the monkey backpack, in the face. The just released gnome’s head snapped back, twisting slightly back and forth was each round hit from a different angle. His features became unrecognizable, turning to pulp under the onslaught. The hit-gnomes had been close enough to keep the weapons on target. No stray rounds, no near misses. They fired nine times each, one shot in the chamber, eight in the mags. A total of eight rounds to his head, ten in the body. The slides locked open after the weapons had expended their deadly feeds. The hit-gnomes threw down their guns, flipped of the plane with both hands and popped out of sight.

Dr. Forester screamed. Agent Barnes drew his weapon and used his body to block Dr. Forester, keeping her in the hatchway for almost a full minute. He watched Rolf’s motionless body while scanning the area for any more incursions. There were none. The agent finally relaxed his stance and stepped cautiously down the extended stairs.

As they moved closer, they could see blood spray everywhere and a pool forming around Rolf’s body. Barnes held his weapon forward, sweeping left and right as they proceeded over to the body, Dr. Forester behind him. When they reached the tiny man, Dr. Forester spoke.

“Check his vitals, he might be alive.”

Agent Barnes grunted his doubt, but maintained his weapons discipline as he laid a hand on Rolf’s chest. He then felt his tiny neck.

“Not breathing and no pulse. Jesus. Look at his face.”

“We should take him,” Dr. Forester said. “Give him a decent burial. We can’t leave him here.”

“Fine,” Barnes replied, turning to the armed pilot that stood in the doorway. “Hey, Bill, get a trash-bag from the galley and we’ll get him back on the plane. Hell, they may want to autopsy him back in Washington.”

Ten minutes later, Barnes was giving the brush-off to the local security guards that had showed up to investigate the shots. Behind him, the pilot lifted the white trash-bag with the tiny body, turning back toward the plane. A bad way to go, shot down like a dog by thugs from both crews. Again.

*****

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