Everyone Dies in the End #36

Ramzke

1

“Why the cuff?”

She really was pretty, he thought. Shaggy, short hair, light brown, yet streaked blonde by the sun, framed a pretty face. It was a striking face set apart from other pretties by a strong jaw and sparkling green eyes. Not that sparkling eyes mattered to him. He didn’t want to make love to the human, just deliver her to Vader.

He pointed to the shotgun leaning against the far wall in the basement. “Because of that.”

“You’re afraid I’ll shoot you?”

He smiled, “Well there is that, but also the fact that it is here seems to prove that when you teleport, or whatever you call it, anything you hold teleports with you.”

“So?”

Ramzke held up the small radio transceiver in his hand. It was black, sturdy, military grade, with a stubby antenna. Two green LEDs adorned the slim top, one blinked intermittently, the other steadily.

The girl looked from the transceiver to Ramzke’s face. Her tears had cleaned streaks on her cheeks, reminders of her grief, but her eyes grieved no more. They were cold, hard.

“Okay, Count. Let’s pretend I’m not in the mood for twenty questions right now. What’s with the cuff, what’s with the radio?”

Ramzke laughed, genuinely amused. “I’m hardly a count, although I was once lord of a fine estate…”

The girl held up a hand. “Loose the history. What’s with the cuff?”

Ramzke could feel his temper rising, the burn inside, the heat in his breast, but he pushed it down, deep down, into a corner of his being, a corner where it couldn’t grow. He pushed it because emotion lead to desire, desire led to blood, and he could not bleed this girl. Instead he smiled.

           “Simple, really,” He pointed at the anklet, “if that gets further than ten feet from this,” he held up the transceiver, “you’ll hear a beep, after that you have five seconds to rectify the situation or the cuff will detonate, severing your foot. So, you want to teleport? Teleport away, but you’ll be a one-legged teleporter within seconds.” He smiled. Effective, no?”