Riker's Calling - Episode 2

Riker Wednesdays

Three came at me at once, lunging forward with their broken bottles right before I sank to the ground, their shard glass stabbing nothing but air as the blade of my Spyderco sliced through an ankle of one of them, the femoral artery of another, and then pierced straight up into the crotch of the third. On my way back up I slid behind the back of the first to take control of him, his ankle wound being the least serious and therefore making him the most likely to continue on. His hand was still wrapped around the neck of the broken bottle so I sliced it loose by way of severing his index finger, holding him as a shield against the other three as he joined his fellow thug in screaming out in pain, both muffled by the masks they hid behind.

“I’ll fuckin‟ kill her!” threatened one of the last three, rushing over to try and pull the woman out from under the bench, but only getting off a step or two before tumbling over when I threw the guy I held into him.

I used this second moment of opportunity to take out another one of them, stepping forward long enough to lance his windpipe then turning my attention back to the most aggressive as he tried to make his way back up to his feet.

With a heel stump I crushed one of his kneecaps, following it up with a thrust of my blade to one of his lungs, the bottom portion of his white masquerade mask turning blood red as it poured from his mouth.

One left, who was now trying to grab hold of the woman beneath the bench so as to use as leverage, but she was curled up like a fetus, kicking and screaming with the same level of passion as a mama bear, and that’s when I noticed that her hands were protecting her overly large stomach

The woman was pregnant.

No longer needing my Spyderco I let it go, sending it off with the whip of my hand to bullet through the air and embed itself into the attacker’s spine just below his neck line. He instantly fell over like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

In less than a minute my life had changed, and I knew it couldn’t be random. Although he was bleeding out pretty fast, the only thug who could still talk was the one whose femoral artery I had sliced. I ripped off his mask, revealing a black kid that couldn’t have been that much younger than myself, teetering on the edge of losing consciousness.

I pulled off his hoodie, tied the sweatshirt around the wound and demanded to know what was going on.

“This can’t be random. This isn’t random.

“Who sent you?”

His mouth was moving, but no words were forming.

I slapped him. “Who sent you?!”

Willing his hand to the side of his head, which he had to concentrate to do, his trembling fingertips attempted to dig at his ear, but within a few seconds he passed out.

I turned his head to the side.

It was an earpiece.

Just as I popped it out two incoming trains pulled up to the platform, the passengers that came pouring out stunned at the scene before them.

I helped the stranger whose tears had drawn me in back up to her feet, having her take a seat back on that bench she had been zip tied to.

I then inserted the earpiece into my ear, a whisper loud enough to be heard personally directed towards me.

“You continue to inspire, Riker.”

Five words and nothing more. It could have come from any of the hundreds of people now gathered on platform six, or, more likely, someone watching from afar.

And so I would be left wondering, far longer than I could have ever anticipated.