Blood on the Beach
"Who the heck are you?" Matthew Kenderson demanded rudely.
The two men stood out like sore thumbs against their environment. Standing on a beach in Daytona, the usual outfit was a casual shirt and swimsuit, sandals, and sunglasses. These two lacked all but the dark shades that obscured half their faces respectively. Matt shot a quick glance around him. The white-sand beach stretched down as far as he could see, interrupted by the occasional pier or jetty. Behind him was a long series of never-ending condos and hotels, following the line of the beach. Toes buried in the soft, dry sand, he saw his older half-brother, Jamie, looking curiously at him from the water.
Matt guessed he did look a little odd, talking to these two adults in designer suits. Who wore suits to a beach? Apparently these guys.
"Wouldn't you like to know," the first Suit snarled. The other one, obviously the senior from his salt-and-pepper hair and tired eyes, elbowed the first Suit.
"We're with the Homeland Logistics Division. We'd like to give you something, but you'd have to come with us to get it. Just a short walk to our car." He said smoothly, like oil, pointing over at a parking lot a good hundred yards or so away.
Matt looked at the Suit, reclined in his lounge chair, a book he hadn't read yet opened to the first page, balanced on his knee, and said flatly, "No."
"It's okay, see, just over to the car. Just a short little walk. I promise you won't regret it!" The second Suit said, trying to put real warmth and authority in his voice but achieving only evil-grandfather malice.
"Um, should I call a doctor?" Matt asked, fake uncertainty lacing his words. "I think you might need to be treated for sudden loss of hearing."
The Suit tried for a laugh. It sounded artificial, even to himself, so he shut up. "No, now, come along with us."
"Jamie!" Matt yelled. His brother started loping for shore as the surf crashed into him and sent sea-spray flying.
Matt only noticed the change after it happened. The two men suddenly tensed, their steel-like corded muscles hidden beneath their designer suits flexing.
The two men reached into their jackets, and that was when Matt knew something was wrong, very wrong. He acted instantly. Why hadn't he seen this coming? Everything about these two said, "Government Business" all over them.
Matt turned tail and ran, so fast that his chair tipped over and fell in the sand. His only desire now was to escape, but even as the two lined him up in their gun sights, he knew he wouldn't have a chance. The first shot rang out and Matt hit the dirt. The round passed directly over his head. He knew why these two wanted him. It had happened before, first in D.C. As he was walking out of his apartment, something had felt wrong. He found out what it was, five minutes later, when a man on the street had grabbed him, shoving Jamie roughly aside and dragging him away towards a discreet grey van. Why was it always grey or white? He'd only escaped because of the fountain... no. He'd promised himself he wouldn't ever do it again. Not after that.
Apparently now he wasn't needed alive.
The second shot burst forward as the firing pin struck the primer in the modified handgun, igniting a burst of gas and propelling a 9mm neuro-toxin dart at 900 fps at the intended target. This particular dart landed half a centimeter away from Matt's arm. He glanced at it once, briefly, then rolled to his right as a third and then fourth round kicked up sand. The fifth round was on its way and coming directly for him.
Nothing he could do. The dart might kill him at this range, it might not. Either way the built in auto-dispenser would inject 4cc's of a potent paralysis drug into his bloodstream, then into his nervous system, and take him down.
The round flew forward - and stuck into the edge of the pit Matt had just fallen into.
It was a shallow pit, but it served its purpose. The two Suits were momentarily taken aback, then ran forward. The first Suit strafed right to flank Matt and leave no grounds for escape. Jamie was closing, behind them now, but the second Suit turned and snapped off a quick shot at him, barely looking and not aiming anywhere near. The dart buzzed past Jamie, but he sprawled in the sand anyways, covering his head in panic. Matt grabbed a fistful of sand and threw it at the first Suit. Luckily the wind was working against the man and the sand flew straight into his face. He stumbled, raising an arm and lowering his defenses to wipe the grit out of his eyes, when Matt struck.
He flew out of the shallow depression, heedless of the single round fired at him from the Suit's partner before Jamie tackled him. Jamie was kinda big.
Matt launched a 360 kick as he ran forward, catching the Suit's shoulder and popping it out of the socket. The Suit blanched but dropped the clip from his gun, fumbling for another.
Matt payed him no attention. He ran directly for the waterline. He'd be safe if he could get out to sea. What he really wanted right now was to sit on this very beach with a cold drink in one hand, his now discarded and forgotten book in the other, and just relax. God knew he hadn't been able to the last month.
But nnoooo. These two ding-dongs had to just waltz in and ruin everything.
Again.
The second suit struggled out of Jamie's hold and mercilessly clocked him in the jaw with the butt of the handgun. Jamie's head whipped back as a cracking sound filled the air. Jamie's jaw.
Matt ducked and weaved as another two shots followed his path, clean misses.
Just another thirty feet! The surf seemed cruelly near and yet far at the same time. Matt cried out as a round took him directly between the shoulder blades. He maybe had twenty seconds before the drug took effect, more likely thirty, due to his... condition.
Stumbling forward with the force, stumbling but forward always, he couldn't spare his brother a glance as he was kicked again with the Suit's shoe, a plain black Loafer. With a metal toe. Jamie curled around the blow, clenching his bloody teeth.
Satisfied that Jamie wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, the second Suit spun and clicked off a shot. Another dart impacted and drove through Matt's thin shirt. Already he was starting to feel sluggish. The darts hurt, also, but that was distant. He could barely feel anything...
Matt sank to his knees, convulsing, and pitched forward. His head crashed into the sand. This was it. They finally had him.
The surf licked caressingly up and into Matt's face. The water gave him a surge of energy, but the shallow sea-foam didn't do much, or as much as Matt had hoped.
He tried to stand but couldn't, so he crawled on his hands and knees. With each pull forward, he felt more and more like himself again.
Meanwhile, Jamie had gotten back up and through sheer persistence, was wrestling the second Suit's gun out of it's owners hand.
The first suit advanced at a casual pace, believing there to be nothing abnormal with his almost-subdued quarry. Matt felt another surge of strength and power as the swell crashed over him, re-vitalizing and fresh. He dragged himself into a stooped but upright position, trudging through the deeper water. The four foot deep water came up to his neck, and he cursed that he was only ten and still too short.
Another wave crashed over, this one larger, and he brought himself fully upright.
The first Suit paused at the edge of the water, only just sensing something wrong.
Matt felt the poison leech out of his body, slowly but surely. The Suit fired another shot, taking the time to aim. The dart buzzed straight for Matt, but was intercepted by a wave that rose opposite the riptide. An evidently random wall of water, rising up from the backwash and against the tide, catching the round and dragging it down to the sandy bottom.
The Suit fired the last of his clip, then threw his gun aside and sloshed into the water after Matt.
Strike one.
The second Suit kneed Jamie between the legs, and he collapsed again, feebly grabbing at the Suit's leg. Another kick in the face served to knock him out and down, unconscious.
Strike two.
The second Suit raced towards the waterline, discarding his dart-gun and reaching for another weapon holstered to his thigh. When he brought it around, Matt knew it wouldn't fire a dart.
Strike three.
Matt grinned malevolently, feeling power surge through him. A burning, tingling, cooling sensation spread through his body, starting with his chest, channeling to his legs and head, then filling his arms. Power radiated from his hands, blue liquid-like orbs glowing from his palms.
Matt's very fiber turned blue, somehow, and a pale blue-grey mist settled over the two Suits; his targets.
The sky turned dark, rain pounded the beach-front, causing any heroic life guard that hadn't scattered when the two Suits brought out guns dive for shelter.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and something told the few remaining people on the beach to hit the road, some forgotten animal instinct telling them to flee. One life guard grabbed Jamie and dragged him off the sand. The two Suits looked at each-other warily.
Matt tried to contain the power, but it surged through him, bursting from his hands. The sea grew choppy and treacherous.
The storm whipped the beach into a frenzy, causing a sandstorm to impact the two Suits. They were instantly soaked by the water falling from the sky.
Sapphire blue, water, water, water. The glowing watery energy burst forth, unable to be contained, and whipped the sea around. Matt raised his arms, not himself any longer, not able to contain... control...
With his ascending hands, a wave rose as well. Not just a wave, but a huge tidal wave, a solid wall of water, slowly gaining and rising.
More slick black cars rolled to a stop, right next to the two Suits on the beach. Out of the cars poured more Suits, each carrying a gun of some sort, and one a rifle. He took aim and opened fire, a three-round burst of 7.62mm ammunition that could tear a normal person apart. Matt dragged his left hand through the air, and another wave rose up, again going against the frenzied tide, and swept the bullets away. With his other hand, Matt poured more and more power into the water. Into the Ocean.
The wall rose up and up, twenty feet, then thirty, advancing all the time to the beach. More vans pulled up on the edge of the condo-front, all marked FBI or SWAT or Daytona Police. Men in helmets and body armor slipped from the vehicles, more guns, and settled into combat positions. Until they saw the water. The Water.
Always water. The tidal wave rose up and through, passing Matt by as the source of energy, a small hole in the water opening for him and him alone. The Ocean was left bare where the wave passed, the incredible power and sheer mass came crashing down on the beach, where thirty government Suits stood waiting for their deaths.
