Pool_2

"Mina?" "Out in the courtyard with the children. We're needed here." Shannon was flooding tears, and choking out, "I know," but barely. She quietly, though haltingly, found her way to the stuttering man who she was certain would oblige her unusual requests, but first she asked him, "Is he gone.. from us.. has he passed the point.." A steel finger gently pressed her lips closed from that utterance, "I, I, I'vvvveh b-b- bin th-there, I'll I'll b-b-bring him back." She smiled a small smile but surprised the tall fellow when she asked, "With or without the whipped cream on your nose?" "E-e-e-e-ther wway," he grinned with a nod. Shannon looked at the big guy, poking at his biceps just to see if arms could be that hard. "They tried to hurt us. Maybe they,.." but she was cut off. "They will not touch either one of you. I absolutely personally guarantee that." It couldn't have been said any clearer. She knew what that clarity meant, and didn't even think of second questioning. Instead, she surprised herself by asking for a personal favor, "This scar thing.." Atop the building, a huge black man stood quietly surveying his valley. There would be no invaders on his watch. And below ground, in his gloom, Marcus's onyx eyes rolled up and back to his lids decline, bathed in the eerie quiet of solitude, away in afterthought. Briefly, a raised empty clenched quavering right hand silhouetted a haunting unshakable thought, the grip of a paddle. "Too easy," he mouthed, "It was too easy. Avarus nisi cum moritur nihil recte facit," drifted him beyond silence into an endless loop of a recycling unanswerable question, "The next level. The next level. The next level. .. up or down?"