The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 18
By Diana the Valkyrie
Is that your final answer?


Fiona:

I was working all the hours that God sent, and it wasn't enough. But I felt I
was making a real difference now, not just trying to make up for the
deficiencies of some petty administrator. Of course, money still wasn't
unlimited, it never is, but the difference was, it was a nurse in charge,
deciding the priorities, making the decisions, not some bean counter. Moira
was great, she found me some good people to keep track of things, make sure we
didn't run out of supplies, haggle down the prices of the food and other
supplies we needed.

Security was a concern for a while; the local organised crime syndicates often
decided that we were easy meat, and offered us protection. Insurance. Meaning,
we pay them some ungodly sum in exchange for not being burned down. I made a
firm rule; each time that happened, the local administrator had to tell me
about it, and I took care of it. It wasn't difficult to deal with; I just told
Wendy.

Next time we got a visit from the same mob, we phoned Wendy direct; she can
get to anywhere in the world in a few minutes, don't ask me how. So, we
stalled the gangsters until Wendy arrived, and then she took care of it. I was
there for one incident, I guess the others went much the same way.

There were three guys. One of them was the talker, the other two were the
muscle, there to overawe and intimidate. The muscleheads were carrying
baseball bats, and slapping them against their hands like they meant to use
them. Wendy took their weapons, and broke them in her hands. Then she
explained that she could break their bones just as easily as she broke the
baseball bats, and how many bones did they think she needed to break before
they did as she wanted?

And she did all this while hovering several inches above the floor, so that
they understood that there weren't dealing with some ordinary woman. When she
does that, you can feel the power, it's like standing near a force of nature.
You feel that fighting her would be like fighting an earthquake or a
thunderbolt.

One of them cowered down immediately, but the other one tried to put up some
resistance. That lasted until Wendy ripped off his trousers, took his genitals
in her hand, and explained how easy it is to tear them off. Then he was on his
knees like the other one. Rebellion over. Wendy then ignored the muscleheads,
and turned to the talker.

As soon as she turned, the one still with his trousers pulled out a gun. She
didn't bother to turn round, she just stood still, and explained "Sweetheart,
I'm bulletproof. But if you fire that thing, I will take it away from you, I
will insert it entirely into one of your body orifices, and I won't be
gentle." He thought about that. "Now drop it, sweetheart." He dropped it. If
the other guy had a gun, he didn't take it out.

"You and me, sweetheart, we're going to have a nice cosy chat with your boss."
"The boss would kill me if I took you there." "Maybe. Maybe he will. But that
would be a walk in the park compared with what I can do to you. I can give you
more pain in five minutes than you'll see in the rest of your life, I can
cause you permanent damage, pain that never goes away, I can ruin the rest of
your life, which you'll wish was a short one."

He looked up at her. "You wouldn't do that, I know you don't hurt people." She
folded her arms, and stared down at him, looking like an angel from hell.
"Sweetheart, you've been reading too many comic books. You've got me confused
with someone nice. I'm not nice. I'm not even human. I'm The Weapon, I break
things. And you, sweetheart, look very breakable. Did you know there's 206
bones in the human body? I bet I could break each of them, one at a time,
without killing you. Like to take that bet? Let me put it this way. Is that
your final answer?"

There was silence. "One," said Wendy. Then "Two." "OK, OK, I'll take you
there, only please protect me? From the boss?" "Sweetheart, these two goons
will protect you. Won't you, scumbags?" They nodded. "And when I've finished
talking to your boss, he'll be more concerned about keeping his skin whole
than in ripping yours off your back." The four of them left; three on foot,
one flying.

Wendy didn't bother to come back to the Rescue Center. But the gang boss did.
He wanted to know what he could do to help, he wanted to make sure that
everyone knew that it was off limits to the bad guys, because Wendy had
explained to him that she wouldn't actually bother to find out who had caused
any damage, she'd take it out of his hide regardless. Oh, and he wanted to
make a large donation to our funds. What a nice man! See, there's good in
everyone, you just have to encourage them a bit.