It's Tuesday, and Wolfpup isn't back online, yet. I wrote the ten stories. Had them finished by Friday. I started number eleven only two hours after finishing number ten. I just finished it, and I guess I'm starting number twelve. I sure hope Wolfpup gets back, soon. I need to send all this mess to her. There's an awful lot of these, now. Well, now, what shall this one be about? Hmmmm. I still have two challenges out there, but I'm not quite up to writing them yet. Wanted: Musebash. Hmmmmm. Ah, this will do.
Hero Du Jour-Blair
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"I'm sorry, Jim. What was I supposed to do? Just let him kill them? You know better than that. I mean, I had to do something, didn't I?" The tight, twitching jaws of his best friend were making him nervous. "Jim? I'm OK, man. See?" Standing up and slowly turning around to prove that he was all right. "It really wasn't my fault, man." Plaintive. Well, it wasn't his fault. He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again. As usual.
Jim sighed, forcing his jaws to unclamp. "I know it isn't your fault, Chief. I am not blaming you for this. I'm just reacting to how close you came to getting hurt. Again. You did good, Chief. I'm not mad at you. I guess I'm just upset at how often this seems to happen. I'm sorry. Don't worry about it, OK?"
"You sure, man? I mean you know I wouldn't do anything like this unless I didn't have a choice, don't you?"
"Yeah. I know. You ready?"
"Do I have to?"
"What do you think?"
"Stick around?" Please, don't throw me to the wolves.
"Of course. If it gets too rough, let me know, and I'll get you out, fast. OK?"
"Thanks, man." Steeling himself for the coming ordeal. With one last, deep breath, he plunged out into the maelstrom of the media.
"Mr. Sandburg! Mr. Sandburg! How are the students?" The first voice carried over the roar of the rest of the crowd of reporters.
"They're fine. No one was hurt. However, there are councilors available for anyone needing to talk through what happened."
"What exactly did happen, Professor?" Several voices chorused.
"Uh, the man in custody took over the library at gunpoint and held several people hostage. He was threatening to kill them if his demands weren't met..."
"What were his demands?" Several voices interrupted him.
"How did you disarm him?" Several others shouted.
All the voices shouting at him, asking a myriad of questions all at once. He couldn't focus. He backed up into a warm, unyielding mass. He felt the hand of his blessed protector on his shoulder.
Jim could feel the uncontrollable tremors in his partner's body. He grasped his shoulder to reassure him, then shouted out above the crowd.
"ENOUGH!" There was instantaneous silence. Before they got started again, he continued in a normal tone. "Look he can't answer your questions if you bombard him with more before he has a chance to answer the first one. Give him a chance. He's going to try to answer all your questions, but if you stress him out too much, I'm going to pull him out of here and you can beg for another chance to talk to him. Do I make myself clear?"
There were grudging murmurs of assent. He squeezed Blair's shoulder and gave him an encouraging little push.
"OK. He was threatening the hostages if his demands weren't met. He wanted the university to stop offering certain classes. He wanted us to burn all books which mention the Holocaust, any books about African Studies, in short, he was a White Supremacist who wanted any and all references that disagreed with his views to stop being taught and destroyed." He paused to take a deep breath. "Now, I know the police were called, and the SWAT Team was here, as well as just about every policeman on duty in the city. What they did, I can't tell you. I wasn't there. You'll have to ask the spokesperson for the department for that information. I'm just here to tell you what happened from where I was."
"Where were you?" A single voice called out.
Blair took a deep breath, resisting the almost uncontrollable urge to giggle. Recognizing it for the incipient hysteria it was. "Uh, I was upstairs, doing some research." They didn't laugh. He was glad.
"Anyway, I guess I was pretty engrossed, 'cause I didn't hear much of anything, until the first shot was fired."
His head shot up. That was a sound he was, unfortunately, familiar with. He looked around the deserted research room. Realizing he was alone. He thought back to the sound of the shot. It had come from downstairs. Carefully marking his place in the ancient reference book he'd been studying, he quietly made his way down, peeking around the corner of the stairwell, to see....One filthy, dirty, ugly man, with a stack of guns. The man had his back toward Blair, his attention split between the dozen or so people in front of him and the phone he was screaming into, nearly slavering in his agitation. Blair heard the racial slurs coming from the filthy man's filthy mouth. The head librarian spotted him. They were on good terms. She tried to warn him away, to tell him with her eyes that this was a madman. He might have sneaked out and gone for help, but the man's words into the phone suddenly registered.
"Look You don't do what I tell you to do, and I'm gonna kill one of these freaks ever half hour until you do. When I finish with the ones in here, I'll go out and start with the rest of the campus. You don't want me to do that, do you?" He had his gun pointed at the head librarian.
Blair realized that in his distraught state, the man was capable of anything. He shifted back around the corner, wondering what to do. How to distract him enough. Keep him from hurting anyone. He reached into his ever-present backpack, searching. Finding his cell phone, he hit the speed dial.
"Ellison."
"Yeah, Jim, it's me. Uh, guess what?" Almost afraid to tell his Blessed Protector where he was.
"You're in the library." The inevitable answer.
"Uh, yeah. He doesn't know I'm here. I can see him. He's planning on killing Ms. Chalmers. He's got his back to me. I'm..."
"Chief. Blair, don't do anything. It's too dangerous."
"Jim. He's going to kill these people. I can't let him do that. Just be ready to get in here quick. I'll leave the cell open, so you can hear what's going on. I'll give you three minutes to let Simon know and get ready. OK?"
"Do you give me any choice?"
"I can't, man. He's got more than a dozen hostages in here. It just wouldn't be right." Without another word, he set the cell phone down on the stairs. Rummaging through his backpack, looking for something suitable, he listened to the ranting and raving maniac holding the library patrons hostage. He stared into space, seeking a solution to his dilemma. Suddenly, he smiled and pulled his keys quietly from his pocket.
He picked up the cell phone and whispered that he was going to try and distract the man enough to get his gun away from him, so please be ready to come in. Then he quietly eased his way back around the corner of the stairs.
He was in luck. The man was standing with his back to Blair, still. Coming fully around the corner, he stood, took careful aim, and threw his keys high over the man's head. The sound of the keys hitting the stacks and then the floor on the other side of the room caused the man to jerk in that direction, his gun leveled, looking for what might have made that sound. Blair took a deep breath and in the man's instant of disorientation, leaped on his back, knocking him to the floor and the gun from his hands. Immediately, pandemonium broke out. Jim and the group from Major Crime burst through the door, the hostages started screaming and scrambling to escape, and Blair held tightly to the man who had caused all the trouble. Jim was the first to reach them. He placed the muzzle of his pistol against the suspect's head and dared him to give him a good reason to pull the trigger. The man wisely ceased his struggles. Within minutes, they had him in handcuffs and being dragged away, still screaming.
"You OK, Chief?"
"Yeah. I need to find my keys, though. They're over there someplace." Waving in the general direction in which he had thrown them.
"I can't say I'm pleased with what you did, but you did a good job, Chief." He wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulders, watching the clean-up operation. He didn't get upset until he noticed the arsenal the perp had had spread out at his feet.
"A hostage situation at Ranier University was ended today with the actions of Graduate Student and Teaching Fellow, Blair Sandburg. Mr. Sandburg is credited with disarming and holding a crazed gunman who had been holding nearly twenty hostages for almost an hour. He had threatened to start killing the hostages if his demands were not met. He is a member of a White Supremacist group known as..."
"Well, Chief. How's it feel to be a real hero?"
"Tiring. I can't believe how tired I am, man. Do you get like this?" There was none of his usual bounce.
"Yeah. It's called the letdown after an adrenaline rush. You've had them before, Chief."
"Yeah, but those times, I was hurt and didn't notice it so much. You know, mistaking it for a symptom of the injury?"
"But you weren't injured, this time."
"No." He paused, thinking. "Do you really wish I had just gotten myself out and left them for you to rescue?" Curious, worried at what the answer might be.
"Yes. And no."
"That isn't an answer, man."
"Yes, I wish you could have just escaped, safe and sound. But I also realize that some of me is rubbing off on you. That a little bit of my Blessed Protector has settled itself on you, in you. I could no more have allowed them to remain behind while I saved myself than you did, Chief. And, I think, knowing that, you couldn't leave them behind, either. You've never been a coward, Blair. And, because of that, I shouldn't be surprised when you do an uncommonly brave thing. I'm just glad you weren't hurt."
"It might have been different, if he hadn't had his back to me, I'll admit. But, I guess we'll never know, for sure."
"Yes we do. You did what you felt you had to. I just wish it didn't happen quite so often." Reaching across and patting his friend's shoulder.
"Me, too." Smiling up at his friend. "But, I'm afraid that under similar circumstance? I'd do it again. Even if it meant getting hurt."
"I know. And that's what scares me, most. Knowing just how brave you are. At least this time is over and everyone's just fine." He turned back to the television, watching the film of the crazed gunman being dragged out of the library, followed by Blair's interview. Smiling at his friend's courage in front of the lights and cameras of the rabid crowd.
"Jim?"
"Yeah, Chief?"
"Next time? Can I skip the reporters?" Plaintive and embarrassed. They had left in the part with Jim making them back off and let him tell his story.
"Sure, Chief. Next time, no reporters."
The End
Well, here is number twelve. I sure hope Wolfpup gets back online soon. I need a break, and I don't feel right taking one until she's back. (I do love spamming up her inbox)