Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 40

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

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Rogers had to physically go and get Abe.

He had started out with a strong ‘pssssst’ just before Abe got to the tree that was, for their purposes, the “end” of the lane. Abe had just kept walking, his body following orders to keep going no matter what. Then Rogers had coughed. Then called Abe’s name. Then, very uncharacteristically, had shouted  “Hey!” Finally he had had  to jog down the lane to catch up with Abe and put his hand on his shoulder. Abe of course, reacted by trying to grab the hand and twist it and use it as leverage to control his assailant, to pull and twist it up behind….well. It would have worked great, if the ‘hand’ had been flesh. Shrug. But it did bring him back to his senses, that he had lost completely, thinking about the person that had above all others, had now become….her….to him.

Since he was a warrior he actually knew what a poleaxe was, so he knew he had not been poleaxed, as the expression went, by…….. her. It was more as if he had been hit full force right between the eyes by one of those enormous wooden hammers things.

He allowed Rogers’ reappeared hand to pull him through the doorway, and into the service corridor, and did not really notice when he then pulled him through the door that was directly opposite across the corridor and into a landscape of bare undulating desert sand dunes. He did not really notice the walk under a blazing sun the size of a …..very very large sun. But he did notice the palm tree because at first glance, just out of the corner of his eye…. his mind thought that it might just possibly be……….her.

When they were back in the service corridor, he realized that Rogers had been talking towards him for a while now. He made a supreme effort to care, and that seemed to help a little. When he was able to tune in Rogers was finishing a sentence…”….and I do not even care to postulate how a black spandex catsuit, whatever in all of most holy creation that may be, will complicate this situation!”

Abe, attempting politeness, said “Pardon me?”

Being trained in this sort of thing, judging by weight distribution and foot position and the implied angle of the bare twitch that Rogers had allowed his hand to execute….Abe saw that Rogers had just barely been able to restrain himself from striking out at him. In fact all of his extensive training told him that Rogers would have very much liked to have just slapped him very hard right across the face.

THAT made him pay attention, since he could think of nothing that would have been more out of character. He snapped to attention and in a voice that had undertones of sheepish apology, got back to business.

“Evasive maneuvers one and two completed, now what?” And then continued….very very incredibly smoothly and suavely…..”By the way,” a casual wave of the hand, “who was that, um, girl?”