Out of the Black - Lee Doty [44]
The bee was caught, it's wings pinched neatly between her fingers. It was wiggling its little pointy butt, looking for some payback. She flung her left hand away from her, trying to pitch it as far away as possible, while sweeping the air with her right hand, hoping to shoo the little hungry devil away. As she did this, she felt the most disconcerting click between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.
She brought that hand up- now the bee was caught there, its stinger useless between the tips of her right thumb and forefinger.
More screaming, more flailing. Now her left fist closed with the bee held gently between her third and fourth fingers. Still screaming, she shook her left hand, forcing the fingers wide apart.
She looked at her left hand... nothing. Whew! When she felt something crunchy pinched between her right thumb and index finger again, she was too shocked to scream. Slowly, she brought up her right hand- sure enough, there was her little pal, waiting patiently with its wings pinched between her fingers. It wasn't wiggling, wasn't looking for payback- honestly, it looked like it was praying for death. Poor little guy.
She watched the bee intently as she slowly forced her fingers apart. It fell to the ground with a barely audible pop. It lay there for perhaps five seconds before it righted itself and began to crawl away. Fascinated, and just a little shell-shocked, Anne watched as it crawled about a meter away and then took off, staying low and heading directly away from the bee juggler.
Awww... A large weight of realization pushed aside her curiosity and confusion. She looked slowly about at the people staring at her slack-jawed. Some had risen to their feet in alarm, there was a ball of ice cream on the ground next to a little girl holding an empty cone in her hand. Ok, so that was a lot of screaming and flailing. Nothing to do now but look at her shoes and walk away. She'd had a fairly embarrassing life to this point, but the last two days had been a crescendo of humiliation.
"Don't do drugs kids." She said into the shocked silence. She hurried away; gaze locked on her shoes, hand shielding the side of her burning face.
***
Well, that was pleasant, Ping thought as he descended the stairs feeling about a meter tall, which was a few centimeters shorter than usual. What was in those cornflakes? In one of his more amusing moments, Captain Hafiz had postulated that it might have been distilled stupid.
Ping was sure that the Feds were now rocketing out to Rosemont College, calling ahead for backup. He wondered what they would find. Magic cornflakes or no, Ping hoped Alexander and Rae had made it away safely. Of course, he wouldn't mind running into them again- he still had issues.
"How'd the cavity inspection go, Bannon?" Audrey said as he passed the security booth.
"It was a real monkey trap." Ping managed a smirk. "Little guy just wouldn't let go of the nut long enough to get his hand out." There were some people in the world that were just fun to make laugh, Audrey was one of them, and Ping couldn't stop trying.
"You think they'd cover that in orifice inspection training." She shook her head, smiling. "Buck up little camper. You remember the reaming the Cap gave you during Three Rings?"
Ping nodded. "Now that was spectacular."
"But it ended up okay, right?"
He nodded again.
"So will this. Go out there and get back on that horse."
"No more horses for me today."
She gave him a curious look. He continued, "I'm heading to the lab... Cap ordered a mandatory drug test... 'for actions unexplainable by the usual stupidity' the order says."
He left her laughing in her bulletproof booth. Yep, always worth it.
***
The lab was dazzling fun.
The automatic doors swooshed open before his extended key could touch them. The keys were equally useful as he attempted to open