The Colonel's Table: Session Two

 

Two burger warriors showed up for work that night, accompanied by two new recruits to the Cadre.

• Laine Kornell, elderly bombe addict
• Thad Albright, wage slave
• Jazzy Boulevard, ex-con
• Edgar, disgraced cop

Mick and Nadia were off that night but the restaurant was fully staffed without them. Orlock Bonnavera, Ozzy Packard and Fonz Trepanier joined the quartet for a total of seven frycooks. When the restaurant was overstaffed like that, it meant someone was being on a dangerous mission while the others held down the fort. Orlock took the four out back for a "smoke break" and explained what needed doing. He shouted like he was still in the restaurant and trying to be heard over the endless shrieking and beeping of the machines. It was just how he talked.

 

There were two missions to choose from.

• Subvert the local police force so they wouldn't interfere with Coterie operations.
• Recon the Court of the Burger Queen outpost on the other side of the river.

Jazzy, Laine and Thad volunteered to go to East Wenatchee and investigate the Court. Orlock warned them not to start a war. They could harass the opposition but they had a treaty with these people. The trio piled into Laine's mangled station wagon (freshly equipped with a new catalytic converter).

 

Edgar volunteered to deal with the local police. Orlock pulled a watch on a chain out of his jean pocket and held it dangling for a moment. There were two cops who seemed like promising assets and after a moment of staring at the watch, which Edgar noted had no actual moving parts or time telling face, gave their locations.

• Rob Dogma, Chelan County Sheriff's Deputy, at the Albertson's across the highway.
• Arch Brabrand, Wenatchee Police Sergeant, at Confluence Health.

He chose to visit the one working the hospital. He asked Orlock to give him an injury bad enough to need urgent care but not bad enough to disable him. The shirtless dowser took a metal tool, dipped it in the deep fryer and pressed it to the back of Edgar's arm. He took it off just before his shirt melted to his skin. Ozzy handed Edgar a greasy bag with three "hot ones", which Edgar vaguely understood meant Special Orders, on the way out.

 

 

The three delinquents crossed the river and pulled the car around to the East Wenatchee Burger King. Jazzy and Thad got out and went inside while Laine pulled into the drive through. Inside the restaurant a fentanyl addict slept face down at a booth in the back. The guy who accompanied Alice into the combination A&W/KFC the night before stood behind the register, posture perfect. A trio of teenagers worked the back of the house behind him. Jazzy immediately noticed they were armed, concealed carry pistols under their uniforms. Thad ordered a burger with chicken fries and a drink. Jazzy wanted gravy and, when politely informed that Burger King didn't carry that, asked for a bowl of whatever sauces they could mix together. Posture corset guy didn't flinch, just quoted him a price and gave the order to his trio of boy scouts to fill.

 

Outside, Laine ordered a chicken sandwich. He got in an argument with the kid working the drive through when he pulled up to get his food. It took long enough that the car behind them honked their horn. A couple of elderly boomers wanted to know what was taking so long. Laine shouted at them and the wife shouted back. Laine opened his trunk, produced a bucket of gravy and tossed it on the windshield of the car. Incensed at the strange attack on his wife, the husband stomped the accelerator in a fit of road rage and narrowly missed pinning the wizened crackhead to the rear bumper of his own vehicle. He came to his senses and reversed out of the drive through lane rather than face the music for his attempted vehicular manslaughter, leaving the kid working the window baffled and Laine the "victor" of the encounter.

By that point Jazzy and Thad had sat down to eat, finished the chicken fries and thrown the burger in the trash. The garbage can was the circular type with a lid and a crown sprouted from the top. The sound of the car crash prompted back-brace to retrieve his cane from under the counter and venture outside to investigate the crash. Laine turned to the kid at the drive through and informed him that they were at war. The kid took him at his word and stuck a pistol in his face. Mister perfect posture told his young employee that the customer was surely speaking figuratively. He asked if Laine's car was driveable. The old man said he didn't know and launched into a tirade about how the slow customer service was the cause of their troubles. Cane guy asked if he needed the staff to call the police, which shut him up. He called out a pair of his teenage employees and, with the car in neutral, they pushed it out of the drive through into a parking space.

Back in Wenatchee, Edgar entered the urgent care wing of the Confluence Health hospital complex. They took his name and he sat down to wait and the PA system gently announced a "code silver" in the admin area, which the disgraced cop instantly recognized as the code for a violent patient. He offered to help and the lady behind the desk told him to sit down. A muffled gunshot echoed from somewhere deeper in the complex. The receptionist told him it was time to leave. He offered, again, to help and she pushed past him to explain to the old couple ahead of him in line that it was time to leave now. Yes she'd save their place. He walked around the desk and entered the employees only area of the hospital.

The door led down a hallway to a cube farm where the shot came from. A secretary or office manager leay beaten unconscious behind a desk, and at the end of the row of cubicles Edgar could see a downed man in uniform. He crept forward unstealthily and found the hospital security guard unconscious but still alive, lungs punctured by his ribcage from several .40 caliber impacts to his vest. His gun was still there. Edgar thought about taking it but was immediately dissuaded by the local cop crouched at the end of the room by a pair of double doors. The guy told him to get the fuck out. Edgar tried to explain he was former police but Sergeant Arch Brabrand would have none of it. Get out of here you dumbass civilian, I'm not arguing with you. 

 

Edgar scarfed a special order from the bag and dragged the injured security guard from the room. The injured guy was heavy and his arm stung from the hot metal and grease burn. The weight grew lighter as he walked. A second hand grabbed the dragstrap of the security guard's vest. Edgar turned and found the Colonel walking alongside him, dragging the wounded man together. He saluted the leader of his secret conspiracy and the Colonel chewed him out. Didn't he know better than to salute in a combat zone with a sniper one room away? Edgar emerged into the urgent care waiting room with the wounded man and the Colonel was gone. He shouted for a nurse and ran back inside to further ingratiate himself to the cop.

 

Inside the Burger King, Jazzy went behind the counter while everyone else was outside. The guy at the drive through didn't notice him look around. He didn't see anything unusual, just a flame broiler where the pressure fryer would be at his own restaurant, and went out the back door before anyone could tell him to leave. The hophead at the table woke up and fumbled for his knife, dropped it on the floor and remembered where he was. "That's not mine" he said to nobody. Neal came back inside, picked up the knife and tossed it in the crowned trashcan. 

Jazzy met Laine and Thad by the car. Laine fulminated against the evils of the Burger Queen and ate his chicken sandwich with bath salts. A fire engine red SUV caked in dust and mud pulled into the parking lot and disgorged four men in red jackets. They pulled on tricornes and bicornes and entered the restaurant. Fortified by the uppers, the old tweaker went inside to give them a piece of his mind. Jazzy followed while Thad left on foot, planning to cross back to Wenatchee via the loop trail bridge and report the success of the recon operation. The whole squad didn't need to get arrested.

At the hospital, Edgar went back into the cube farm. Sergeant Brabrand had already pushed into the office complex beyond and the disgraced cop decided to ingratiate himself to the man the fastest way he knew how: by taking a bullet for him. He opened the door to the private offices and got shot center mass. He fell to the floor and his hearing disappeared under the rattle of the officer's service weapon as he answered with a volley of his own shots. It wasn't a fatal wound but it sat Edgar down and by the time he was able to prop himself on an elbow Arch was already kicking the gun away from the downed suspect. It was a good shoot but the Sergeant didn't seem relieved. He recognized the shooter and rather than roll her over and cuff her, tried to do chest compressions while he shouted at the wounded Edgar to get an AED. And one for himself too. Edgar shouted at the police officer in response, threatening to kill himself with the security guard's weapon unless Arch fed Maria (the injured suspect) a piece of chicken from the bag. Sergeant Brabrand relented and filled her airway with greasy fried meat. The blood oozing out of the wound hardened to red and white plastic, stopping her from bleeding out and stabilizing the internal damage. When Edgar refused to leave and let the EMTs take care of him, Arch hauled them both out through the back exit and into the parking lot.

Edgar leaned against the hood of a car and willed his blood not to pool anywhere awkward while Arch interrogated Maria. The plastic in her chest made her voice rattle but she swore violently, angry at the Sergeant for shooting her in the middle of her rampage of revenge against the uncaring bureaucracy. Across the lot, the SWAT team entered the hospital. Edgar realized that Arch hadn't told them the suspect was already neutralized. He was trying to save Maria not only from death but from the consequences of her rampage. He also noted the injured mass shooter wore a diamond necklace with only one of three sockets filled. Maria wasn't having any of their questions. If they were so interested in talking to her then they should find the other two. One was afraid of everything and one was obsessed with babies. Edgar told Arch to call him later and they'd meet at the KFC by the river. He'd bring the only person he trusted from the sheriff's department. Then Edgar went back into the hospital to find whoever it was Maria was talking about.

Thad crossed the pedestrian bridge across the Columbia River by night. A hulking figure leaned against the chest high fence. As he drew closer the guy stepped out to block his path. A seven foot tall elephant-man type guy with knobbly growths all over his body, barely contained by a soaked pair of sweat pants and a liquid black wife beater with BAD GIRL blazoned in hot pink. The monster asked Thad if he was carrying the good stuff. It was a trick question. He knew the guy didn't have any Special Orders, or he'd smell it on him. Thad told him to come to the restaurant with him and he'd serve one up. Sauza laughed. Normally he tossed people who tried to pay with IOUs into the river, but he had a craving. As they walked down the other side of the bridge to the little bike trail, the troll patiently explained that he couldn't get an erection without consuming a minor charge in food, and he could imagine what that looked like.

At the Burger King there were four redcoats. An Indian guy, an American Indian guy, a West African and a Southeast Asian dude. The Indian, the officer, talked with the back brace guy. It was the first time the Colonel's people had seen the manager smile genuinely at anything. The dope fiend left eating a cheeseburger and Jazzy stood by while Laine cursed at anyone and everyone in earshot. The Officer told him to moderate his language, there were children working in the restaurant. Laine vomited a bellyful of chicken onto his beautiful red outfit. Jazzy tried to clean the guy up with napkins but was shouldered aside by the Indonesian guy, who was obviously the group's tailor. Laine felt more even keeled after vomiting up most of the dose before he could absorb it through his stomach, but kept badmouthing the Burger King. The Nigerian and Native asked Neal, the manager, for permission to deal with this. Neal gave the slightest of nods and they hustled Laine out of the restaurant, locking the door behind them before he could reenter.

Jazzy took an interest in the redcoats' outfits. Major Ravinder Bhoja, stripped of his puke soaked red jacket and undershirt but still wearing his bicorne, explained they were members of the 33rd Regiment of Foote, a living history troupe based on a Revolutionary War unit raised from freed slaves in the American South. They were putting on a little demonstration tomorrow in the back country if Jazzy was interested in attending. It would be nice to have someone besides immediate family to witness the test firing. Outside, Laine handed out KFC coupons to the cars queued in the drive through line. On seeing this the redcoats again turned to Neal for permission, who gave them the okay to fight in the parking lot. The four lobsterbacks went out to eject Laine from the property. He ran for his car. Jazzy stole the hat off one of the musketeers and the Indonesian guy punched him in the kidney for his trouble before he got in the passenger seat. As Laine peeled out of the parking lot, Jazzy looked in the rear view mirror and saw the Major chewing the Native guy out for grabbing a musket out of the SUV.

Edgar had to break a window to get into the maternity ward. The place was empty, but not because the inhabitants evacuated the building. They were all in the breakroom, standing room only, listening to someone give a speech. Pregnant women and new mothers and doctors and nurses and a familiar voice. Edgar stood at the back of the crowd and saw the woman on the chair was Maria. A clone of the one outside, wearing the same necklace but with the single diamond in a different position. He froze, stunned, and listened to her speech. Noble Maria was inspired by the struggle of the new mothers, of the doctors. They didn't give up, and neither did she when he told her to try on that damn necklace. Even though it was a terrible idea and she was scared, she did it anyway.
 

The sound of a breaching shotgun announced that the SWAT team had made entry at the other end of the hospital. Maria led her entranced congregation of followers out the back door Edgar broke open. The disgraced cop returned to his senses when he left the building and slipped away from the crowd. He made sure he wasn't being followed and returned to the restaurant.
 

Back at the restaurant, Orlock and Fonz had already gone home for the night, leaving Ozzy to close. He nodded and said ok repeatedly as Jazzy, Edgar, Laine and Thad described their adventures, not really paying attention. They had scouted the Court and recruited a local police officer, at the cost of making a couple messes and blowing their cover. Sauza the bridge troll sat at a booth and ate a pail of fried chicken dusted with spicy sauce, guzzling a large cup of Sweet Lightning. The special order burst several of the pustules marring his knobbly skin, which probably felt good but also sent a welter of human grease onto the floor. To make sure he understood what happened, Ozzy perfectly recapped what the cadre told him while he mopped up the mess.