Takahashi Now
A Manga Artist’s Apocalypse
By J. Austin Wilde
Fission Park Press
J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Minister of Propaganda and
Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Fission Park Press
jaustin@aloha.net
WARNING:
The following work of fanfiction is a parody of the work of two
great artists: Francis Ford Coppola and Rumiko Takahashi. The
characters are the creation of Rumiko Takahashi / Kitty TV /
Shogakukan and the situations and dialogue based on “Apocalypse
Now”, Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope.
“The End”, Copyright 1967 Doors Music Company, ASCAP.
Used without permission. “Suzie-Q”, Copyright 1970 Arc Music
Corporation, BMI, written by Dale Hawkins, Stanley Lewis, and
Eleanor Broadwater. (Again used without permission.)
If you are the type of person who is easily offended, you should
probably stop reading now. (Especially if you aren’t familiar with the
story line, as you may be shocked.)
I’m not yet done with this one. I’m posting it just to get a feel for the
response. For those of you familiar with the story line I’m sure you
know what fates lie ahead for the characters. (Shudder)
The jungle was green and lush. The trees began to sway with a
quickening breeze. Faintly, very faintly, came the whup whup whup
of a helicopter. A mournful guitar, sounding more like a sitar, began to
play. Tambourines and rimshots followed the guitar. The sound of
the helicopter grew in the distance. Hazy yellow vapor wafted about
from a smoke grenade.
“This is The End... Beautiful friend...”
The jungle lit up in brilliant orange flames.
“This is The End... My only friend, The End...”
The jungle blazed again with fresh explosions of fire. Smoke
billowed from the burning jungle, and a helicopter darted by, rotors
turning in slow motion.
“Avoiding all replies, The End. Of everything that stands, The End.
No safety or surprise, The End. I’ll never look into your eyes...Again...”
More helicopters whirled around the burning jungle, moving faster,
their rotor wash rapid like the pulse of the hummingbirds they mocked.
“Can you picture...
what will be...
so limitless and free...
Desperately in need...
of some...
Stranger’s hand...
In a...
Desperate land...”
The fiery vista mingled with images of still more helicopters and
burning jungle. Palm fronds fell against a sheet of orange flames. A
man in a faded olive drab tee smoked a cigarette thoughtfully,
madness dancing behind numbed eyes. His black pigtail fell over his
shoulder as his eyes flashed and the choppers beat at the air and his
world burned around him.
“Lost in a romance...
Wilderness of pain...
And all the children...
Are insane...
All the children...
Are insane....
Waiting for the summer rain....”
The sounds of rotor wash melted into the desperate beat of a
ceiling fan over his head. Dirty smoke wafted around his head as he
lay atop sweat and semen soiled sheets. Moisture beaded on his
forehead and face. A .45 lay halfway concealed under a pillow.
More than a few bottles of rotgut ‘33’ were strewn about the bed,
the floor, everywhere.
He got up out of bed and staggered to the window. Behind the
blinds was a bustling, vibrant city. Yellow flags with three red stripes
fluttered along a tree lined avenue. You’d hardly know there was a
war going on.
*Saigon... Shit...I’m still only in Saigon.*
*Everytime I think I’m going to wake up back in the jungle...
When I was home after my first tour it was worse... I’d wake up and
there’d be nothing...*
The man looks at a picture of his father, and lights it up with the
cherry of his cigarette.
*I hardly said a word to my mother when she said ‘yes’ to a
divorce... When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there
all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.*
He sat bleary eyed upon a OD-Green wool blanket.
*I’m here a week now. Waiting for a mission. Getting softer. Every
minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute Charlie
squats in the bush, he gets stronger.*
*Each time I looked around the walls moved in a little tighter.*
The guitar comes back, manic, deranged. The beat is faster as the
man practices his forms in a drunken stupor. He wobbles, he cries, he
sees himself in the mirror and is frightened by what he sees. His fists
fly at the glass in a blur, shattering the mirror and driving him back
weeping in anguish. Not for his bloody hand, but for his soul.
* * *
Two men in cleaned and pressed fatigues scaled the staircase of
the hotel. An old Vietnamese woman folded linen on the third floor
landing. She didn’t even look at them as they passed.
*Everyone gets everything he wants... I wanted a mission. And
for sins they gave me one. Brought it up like Room Service.*
They stopped outside a door and knocked.
“Captain Saotome, are you in there?”
“Y-Yeah I’m coming.”
*It was a real choice mission... And when it was over I’d never
want another one.*
The door opened and Saotome appeared. He is unshaven, haggard,
and naked; covered only by the dirty sheet he drapes loosely about
his waist.
“Whaddya want?”
“Are you all right Captain?”
Saotome turns around, flashing them with his fish belly white ass
as he staggers back to the bed.
“What’s it look like?” He retorted.
“Are you Captain Saotome, 505th Battalion, 107th Airborne,
assigned to II Corps?”
Saotome nodded wearily. “Hey buddy, you gonna shut the door?”
He yelled at the other soldier, who is standing in the threshold, staring.
“Captain Saotome, I have priority orders from COMSEC
Intelligence Nha Trang to escort you to the airfield.”
Saotome nodded again.
“What are the charges?” He asked tiredly.
“Sir?”
“The charges. What’d I do?”
The man looked confused. “Sir, there are no charges. Come on sir,
there’s still a little time to get cleaned up.”
Saotome sighed and fell back on the bed to sleep off his drunk.
The first soldier groaned.
“Come on Dave, we got a dead one here.”
They picked up Saotome against his moaning protests and dragged
him to the shower. They stood him up inside and hit the water. Of
course it was freezing cold.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!” Ranma-chan cried, her hair now red
and sopping wet. The two men jumped back in surprise as the terribly
beautiful wonderfully naked woman pulled the shower curtain on them
and tried to sober up.
* * *
The helicopter set down in Nha Trang. Saotome, now male again,
stepped off in his best fatigue uniform. Men marched by singing a
bawdy cadence.
*I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn’t even
know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked
through the war like a main circuit cable. Plugged straight into Genma.*
He approached a mobile home trailer with a little picket fence and
outdoor wooden deck patio. Two MP’s stood lazy guard, stiffening
only when he approached.
*It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker for Colonel
Genma Saotome’s memory, any more than being back in Saigon was
an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own...
And if his story is really a confession, than so is mine.*
He entered the mobile home and was greeted by a full bird colonel.
“Captain Saotome reporting as ordered sir,” he said saluting.
Colonel Mukaida, a crotchety old man, returned his salute and
directed him to stand at ease.
“Have you ever seen this gentleman, Captain?” Mukaida asked,
pointing to a man wearing dark glasses and a trenchcoat. The man
looked back but didn’t say a word.
Saotome knew him. Yotsuya. A Company Man. This was a test.
He denied ever seeing him before.
“Have you met the General before, or myself?”
General Tendo smoked a cigarette impassively, watching him.
“No sir, not personally.”
“You worked a lot on your own haven’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Your report specifies that you worked in Intelligence. I Corps.”
This was another test.
“Sir, I’m not presently disposed to discuss such activities.”
“Did you not work for the CIA in I Corps?”
Saotome shook his head.
“Did you not assassinate a government tax collector, Quang Tri
province?”
Saotome was dead faced. “Sir I am unaware of any such activity
or operation. Nor would I be disposed to discuss any such activity if
it did in fact exist, sir.”
He passed the test. They went straight to lunch.
“Captain, have you heard of Colonel Genma Saotome, Operations
Officer 5th Special Forces?”
The tests just didn’t end. Of course he did. Genma was his father.
Tendo jumped in. “Mukaida, would you play that tape for the
captain please.”
Mukaida nodded and punched the ‘play’ button.
“Listen to this carefully captain,” Tendo advised.
“_Transmission Nine zero-four-thirty hours, sector King-Zulu-
King._” The tape went.
“These were monitored out of Cambodia,” Mukaida supplied.
“_I watched a snail... Crawl along the edge...of a straight razor.
That’s my dream. It’s my nightmare... Crawling slithering, along the
edge, of a straight razor...and surviving..._”
“This has been verified as the voice of Colonel Saotome,” Mukaida
said. No one said anything about the similarities of last names. The
tape went on.
“_Transmission eleven, received 68 December 30, 0500 hours,
sector King-Zulu-King: We must kill them, we must incinerate them.
Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army.
And they call me an assassin... What do you call it when the assassins
accuse the assassins? They lie... They lie and we have to be merciful...
to those that lie. Those... Neybobs... I hate them... I do hate them..._”
The tape stopped. Mercifully. Hearing his father that way, it chilled
him to the bone.
“Genma Saotome was one of the most outstanding officers this
country ever produced.” Tendo said when they had sat in silence long
enough. “He was brilliant, he was outstanding in every way... And he
was a good man too, a humanitarian man.”
Saotome could have debated this point, but decided to keep silent.
Tendo went on. It was obvious that the two men had once been
good friends.
“A man of wit and humor... He joined the Special Forces... And
after that his ideas, methods...became... unsound.” He said the last
word again bitterly. “Unsound.”
Mukaida read from a brief.
“Now he’s crossed into Cambodia with his Montagnard army of
his that worship the man... like a god... And follow every order
however ridiculous.”
Tendo looked hurt as he spoke. “You see Saotome, in this war
things get... confused out there. Power, ideals, the old morality and
practical military necessity... But out there with these natives, it must
be a temptation to be God. Because there’s a conflict in every human
heart. Between Good and Evil. And Good does not always triumph
over Evil... Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln calls
the ‘better angels of our nature’.”
A helicopter stuttered overhead.
“Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one... Genma
Saotome has reached his: and very obviously he has gone insane.”
Tendo gave the nod to Mukaida, telling him to give the order.
“Your mission is to proceed up the river in a Navy patrol boat.
Pick up Colonel Saotome’s path at Nhu Mung Bha, follow it, learn
what you can along the way. When you find the colonel, infiltrate
his team by whatever means available and terminate the colonel’s
command.”
Saotome’s eyes widened.
“Terminate the panda...” He said, looking at an intelligence photo
as he said it.
Tendo sighed wearily. “He’s out there operating without any decent
restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable form of human
conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops.”
“Terminate with extreme prejudice,” Yotsuya said. The only thing
he said the entire interview.
“You understand Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will
it ever exist.”
Saotome didn’t need to be told. He understood it better than anyone.
It was all just going through the motions, and suddenly he despised
them for it. Why couldn’t they just accept what they were doing and
be done with it? He was an assassin, he did the dirty work for the
CIA and the Army. That was all he’d ever been to them, a solution
they could wash their hands of.
* * *
The helicopter took him towards the coast. The rice paddies were
small rectangles of reflected sky against the dikes and small patches of
dry ground where sodden huts stood. High up in the sky, away from
the smell and the heat and the death, Vietnam was almost beautiful.
*How many people had I already killed? There were those six
that I knew about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breaths
in my face... But this time it was an American, and my father... That
wasn’t supposed to make any difference to me, but it did... Shit...
Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out
speeding tickets at the Indy 500.*
*I took the mission... What the hell else was I going to do?*
* * *
An olive drab boat chugged away from the pier. it picked through
the dugout canoes and the sampans and made for open water. The
word ‘Erebus’ was stenciled on the fantail.
*I was being ferried down the coast in a Navy PBR, a kind of
plastic patrol boat; pretty common sight on the rivers these days.
They said it was a good way to pick up information and move
without drawing a lot of attention, and that was okay. I needed the
air and the time. Only problem was I wouldn’t be alone. *
*The crew were just kids. Three sisters and a duck man with one
foot in their graves.*
Saotome watched Mousse sunning his face with a reflector. His
glasses were pushed up on his head and his eyes were closed. He
looked quite serene in the forward .50cal gun tub.
*Mousse was a famous stage magician from some circus act in
China. To take one look at his thick glasses you’d wonder if he’d
ever seen anything in his life.*
Saotome looked over to the girl working on one of the PBR’s
diesels. She was grease stained and wore a pained mask of frustration
on her face as she worked the wrenches. Every other turn she would
bust her knuckles on a nearby pipe.
*Akane, the one they called ‘chef’, used to live in Nerima. She
looked like she was wrapped too tight for Vietnam. She was probably
wrapped too tight for Nerima.*
Another girl, the eldest of the three, was busy dusting the pintle
mounted M-60. Her long mane of hair was tied off with a tiger-striped
camo pattern ribbon bow and fell over one shoulder. Her olive drab
fatigues looked freshly pressed, although how she could manage that
aboard the Erebus was beyond him.
*Kasumi, or Miss Clean, was from some quiet Tokyo suburb,
and I think the light and the space of Vietnam really put the zap on
her head.*
He looked up to the pilothouse as Kasumi began dusting the canopy.
The Chief was busy conning the boat and talking over the radio.
*Then there was Nabiki, the Chief. It may have been my mission,
but sure as shit was the chief’s boat.*
The boat rolled on. Kasumi brought out a portable radio and tuned
it in.
Bright and cheerful (and obviously civilian because no one in
uniform had that much to be happy about in this hellhole) voices
sang the radio station’s jingle. “AFVN Central Highlands, Wow!”
“Good morning Vietnam, this is Army Specialist Zach Johnson for
AFVN with a special message from the Mayor of Saigon. The mayor
would like all the GI’s living in the city to hang their laundry up
indoors instead of from the windows. The Mayor wants you to help
keep Saigon beautiful.”
“And here’s a blast from the past going out to Big Sam all alone
out there in the Mantle Room with the guys from the 1st Battalion
35th Infantry, and dedicated to the fire team at An Khe, from their
groovy C.O. Fred ‘The Head’. Here’s the Rolling Stones with
‘Satisfaction’.”
As the Stones cranked out ‘Satisfaction’, Saotome noted the boat
picking up speed. Akane was at the helm, gunning her diesels for all
they had. He looked aft and saw Mousse, in duck form, water skiing
behind the boat. He gripped the tow rope in his beak and shot across
the wake. Nabiki and Kasumi cheered for him as he jumped back
across the wake and flipped.
Mousse cut hard outside and swamped a couple Vietnamese with
water. They cursed at him and fell over into the water. Nabiki cheered
again. Saotome had to laugh in spite of himself.
* * *
Saotome joined Nabiki in the pilothouse. She gave him a once over
and turned away with a smile. Then she picked up a map and showed
it to him.
“There’s about two points where we can draw enough water to
get into the Nung River. They’re both hot, belong to Charlie.
“Don’t worry about it,” Saotome said coolly. He offered her a
cigarette.
“Don’t smoke,” she replied. She adjusted course to steer around a
sampan. “You know I’ve pulled a few Special Ops in here. About six
months ago I took a man up past the bridge at Do Lung. He was regular
army too.” She thought about that man and a cloud of doom hung
suddenly over her face.
“I heard he shot himself in the head,” she finished after a few
minutes.
A series of long rolling booms echoed across the water like distant
thunder. Akane looked up in dismay.
“What’s that?” She asked.
“Arclight,” Saotome supplied. “B-52 strike.”
Akane shuddered. “I hate that. Every time I hear that something
terrible happens.”
Kasumi smiled blithely. “Charlie never sees them or hears them.
The concussion will suck the air out of your lungs.”
Seeing Kasumi discuss the terrors of an Arclight so cheerfully made
Saotome shudder in spite of himself.
“Something terrible is gonna happen,” Akane declared.
“Oh my!” Kasumi cried, pointing across the bow. “Smoke!
Secondary burns!”
Nabiki picked up her binoculars.
“Hueys over there. Lots of Hueys.” The chop of rotor wash grew
louder as they approached the beach.
“Let’s have a look Chief,” Saotome ordered. He had a funny
feeling about this.
*It was the Air Cav. First of the Ninth, our escorts to the mouth
of the Nung River. But they were supposed to be waiting for us
another thirty kilometers ahead.*
Saotome smiled as he saw them.
*Well... _Airmobile_. Those boys just couldn’t stay put!*
As the Erebus approached the beach the noise of combat and the
wail of refugees became overpowering. Children cried as soldiers
tended their wounds and loaded them into APCs for evacuation. An
amphib with a big Rome-plow painted like a shark’s mouth knocked
over a hut, setting off a satchel charge that finished the hut but left
the APC unscathed. Helicopters darted about above them like angry
hornets.
*First of the Ninth was an old cavalry division that had cashed in
its horses for choppers and gone tear-assing around ‘Nam looking for
The Shit. They’d given Charlie a few surprises in their time here.
What they were mopping up now hadn’t even happened yet an hour
ago.*
Saotome had Mousse in tow as they crossed the ruined beach.
They passed a gaggle of civilians. Chief among them was a cute
and tiny little Japanese woman with a sketch pad. Her cohorts all
scribbled furiously on sketch pads as they passed.
“Go by like you’re fighting!” The little Japanese woman extolled
them. “Don’t look at us! This is for manga! Go by like you’re
fighting! Like you’re fighting!”
Saotome couldn’t believe this one. He continued on shaking his
head.
The fighting continued in the distance. The evacuation continued
apace. A cow was lifted with a sling by an observation helicopter. It
mooed mournfully as it was carried away.
Saotome approached a rifleman heading back towards the beach.
“Where can I find the CO?” He asked him.
The soldier saluted him quickly.
“You can’t miss him sir, he’s right over there.” He pointed back
towards a low wall of masonry littered with the bodies of the dead.
A tall man in neat green fatigues posed somewhere between recruiting-
poster rigid and John Wayne Hollywood. He wore a blue cavalry hat
and gold neckerchief straight out of the nineteenth century.
Ranma recognized him immediately. Fortunately the Colonel
wouldn’t recognize _him_, at least not as a man...
The man began tossing playing cards onto the bodies of the fallen.
“Nine of clubs.”
“Two of spades.”
“Three of hearts.”
He thoughtfully placed a card into the cold dead hand of a VC
soldier.
“Thou art the Jack of the Deck,” he said to the dead man.
Ranma picked up one of the cards and looked at it. On the back
of the card was the 1st of the 9th’s logo and their motto: ‘Death
from Above’.
“What’s that?” Mousse asked.
“Death cards,” Ranma replied.
“What?”
“Death cards. Let’s Charlie know who did this.” Ranma shouted
against the rotor wash.
The man dismissed some insignificant tanker with a wave of his
hand and turned around just as Saotome approached.
Ranma saluted him and shouted over the choppers.
“Captain Saotome!” He yelled by way of introduction. “I carry
priority papers from COMSEC intelligence, II Corps. I understand
Nha Trang has briefed you on the requirements of my mission.”
“What manner of assignment is this?” Lt. Col. Tatewaki Kuno
asked. “In truth I have heard nothing from Nha Trang.”
Ranma was undaunted. “Sir, your unit is supposed to escort us
into the Nung.” He handed Kuno a copy of the orders.
Kuno studied them for just less than the time it would take to
read them. He was clearly unconcerned and possibly a little perturbed
at this upstart Captain telling him where he should be and what he
should be doing. He handed the orders to his diminutive majordomo
Sasuke.
“We shall see, Saotome.” He looked back over the vista of
destruction around him. The crackle of gunfire and the constant thrum
of helicopters. “In the interim you would do best to stay well clear
until I have completed the conquest of this village.”
One of Kuno’s men came up to him.
“Hey sir, I heard that guy next to the captain is named Mousse.”
Kuno was intrigued. “Mousse? The swordsman from China?”
Kuno looked to Mousse. “Is this true?”
“I’m Gunner’s Mate Third Class Mousse, sir!” He replied.
“It is truly an honor to meet you Mousse. I have admired your
greatsword techniques for years!”
“Thank you sir!”
“Thou mayest refrain from calling me ‘sir’. Call me Tatewaki
instead.”
Far in the distance rolled the thunder of another Arclight. Men
wandered by across the darkened sands. A few campfires burned
brightly. Beers cans littered the sand, and it was a challenge to avoid
them when you walked. The smell of barbecue mingled with the
reek of cordite, jet fuel, and death.
*Kuno had a pretty good day for himself. They choppered in
the teriyaki and the beer and turned the LZ into a beach party.*
Ranma took in a drag of his cigarette and blew it out solemnly. He
had a far away look in his eyes.
*The more they tried to make it just like home, the more they
made everybody miss it.*
Kuno listened on as a man strummed a guitar. He was kneeling
formally, appearing to be holding court amongst his men. They
laughed and drank and had a good time. Kuno seemed very pleased
with himself.
*Well he wasn’t a bad officer I guess. He loved his boys, and he
felt safe with them. He was one of those guys that had that weird
light around him. You just knew he wasn’t going to get so much as
a scratch here.
“What happened to your mission, Captain?” Kuno called to him.
“Has Nha Trang forgotten about you?” He began to laugh imperiously
and his men joined in.
Ranma ignored the slight and pulled a map from his pocket. Kuno
made an aside to Sasuke while gesturing to Ranma.
“Airborne!” Kuno sniggered. He laughed again.
Ranma grit his teeth and presented the map to Kuno.
“Sir, there are two places we can get into the Nung River.” He
pointed to them on the map. Kuno showed little interest but looked
on anyway.
“Verily,” Kuno muttered.
Ranma went on. “Here and here. It’s a pretty wide delta, but these
are the only two spots I’m really sure of.”
Kuno began to show more interest when he took a closer look at
the place where Ranma’s finger rested.
“In truth the village you point to is most perilous.”
“Perilous? what do you mean ‘perilous’”
“I am saying there is great danger there. They are possessed of
great ordnance that shakes the very heavens. I have lost several
valiant reconnaissance ships there from time to time.”
He turned to Sasuke. “What is the name of yonder thrice-damned
village? Vin Din Dop, or is it Lop? These verminous Vietnamese
names all sound the same. Do you have any reports of it?”
Sasuke thought about it over his beer.
“Master, I believe that is where we lost the Pig-Tailed Girl.”
Kuno was livid. “Why didn’t you say so earlier!” He raged.
Ranma remembered his escape from Kuno through that village
well.
“But master, they shot the hell out of us there. That’s Charlie’s
point.”
“It matters not! Oh Pig-Tailed Girl! I come for thee!”
* * *
The thin streaks of dawn bathed the grassy slopes of the LZ in
orange light. The choppers were spinning up. The thunder of the
rotor wash shook the very ground. Men ran to their ships with full
combat gear ready.
Kuno exchanged his cavalry hat for his helmet and checked his
mic. He gave a thumbs’ up to his left door-gunner.
“How art thou feeling this day James?” He called to him.
The door-gunner locked back the bolt of his M-60 and raised the
front ring sight.
“LIKE A MEAN MOTHERFUCKER SIR!!!”
Kuno nodded approvingly. He turned to Sasuke and pointed to him.
“You may sound the charge Sasuke!”
Sasuke raised a bugle to his lips and began to blow ‘Charge’ over
and over. Wild whoops of excitement echoed over the commo net as
the helicopters surged up into the air. First ten, then twenty, then almost
fifty Huey slicks, gunships, and scouts orbited above the LZ. They
slid into their formations with practiced ease, an aerial ballet of
awesome grace and power. Kuno was beside himself with pride as he
watched them whirl above and below and around his gunship.
When they were in formation, Kuno turned them south and they
headed out to sea. The sky was fiery orange and the fat sun was
blood red. That such a sanguine vista was laid before them in the
morning Kuno took as a good omen. Ranma and Mousse sat in the
back of the chopper with the troops. For some reason Kuno had taken
a bit of a shine to Mousse.
“Dost thou prefer a lighter blade or a heavier blade?”
“Heavier,” Mousse replied.
“In truth? I was of the opinion you preferred a lighter blade.”
“You can’t turn the polearms with a lighter one.”
Mousse went on but Kuno was getting messages from his advanced
scouts. He waved him silent and took the reports.
“Blue Thunder this is Tachi Six, we’ve got it spotted,” the radio
crackled.
Kuno acknowledged. “Roger, Tachi Six. All elements assume
attack formation. Prepare Psy-War Op. This is a Romeo Foxtrot,
shall we dance. Make it loud!”
He turned back to Mousse to explain his plan.
“We shall swoop in low from out of the rising sun. From a mile
out we shall play the laughter.”
Mousse was puzzled.
“Laughter?”
“Of course!” Kuno cried. “I have recorded my twisted sister’s
laughter. There is no greater intimidator when played for the heathens
at maximum volume. They flee before it like the base cowards they
are!”
Mousse looked over his shoulder to Ranma and shrugged.
In another chopper Akane watched a door-gunner shove cotton
into his ears. The rest of the troops followed suit with cotton balls,
earplugs, bananas, etc; She glanced at Kasumi, who gave her a
raised eyebrows look of confusion.
Akane tapped the door-gunner on the shoulder.
“Why are you all wearing ear plugs?” She shouted above the
rotor wash.
The man gave her a lopsided grin. “So we don’t have our brains
leak out!” He gestured to the oversized bullhorn PA system mounted
on the skids.
Akane laughed for a second at how ridiculous that sounded. Then
when she saw that no one else was laughing, she took the proffered
earplugs from the co-pilot. Kasumi was already putting hers in.
That’s all I have so far. (Well I do have the tiger part done too, but
that’s getting a bit ahead of the story so far.) Nothing shocking yet.
Tell me what you think. Even if no one likes it, I’ll still finish it some
day. Just depends on how much rum I have left lying around and how
many more times I can watch the movie before the tape wears out.
Free the Nukes!