the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise with one thing on her mind: sentence count (Hint: rhymes with Six)

Prompt word:

REMOTE

“Hello?”

If one wanted a specific, though not overly-comprehensive, insight into how the tall, thin man related himself to the world around him, the interrogative appendage to his query, stepping from the darkening hallway at the far-end of the bar, would’ve spoken volumes.

“I’d swear this place was crowded with Proprietors and guests,” Lips pressed into a non-committal expression, (another classic tell), he walked past the small stage to a round wooden table upon which was a laptop, a remote control and a high-quality embossed white card, “Press Me” in simple but elegant script.

Looking around the empty Café, the thought, ‘Better safe than sorry’ intruded, serving double duty as both a cautionary admonition and a suitable, if not regrettable, inscription on, say, an anniversary watch or, perhaps, in thrall to a fit of congenital irony, the transom of a sailboat; the Proprietor pushed the red button on the remote.

A live video feed lit the display screen, a title scrolling up “Live and Remote… as opposed to Remote and Alive… the Travels of the Four Proprietae: Chris and Mimi,  jenne and… Denise…” music from the seventies began to play.

Somewhere on the far side of the globe, the Raconteuse sat at a wrought iron table on the edge of a formal garden in the gathering dusk, smiled, waved and said, ” Jenne, Denise and Mimi, just left, they should be home soon. Don’t leave the kitchen a mess now.”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise with one thing on her mind: sentence count (Hint: rhymes with Six)

If you’re a new Reader (or a regular Reader who might want to refresh their memory) here’s an opportunity to read the story Tom and I are writing from the beginning. The link to ‘…of Heroes and the MisUnderstood‘.

Prompt word:

REMOTE

I came to on my back, covered in girl and had a flashback to a dormitory-morning from my road-less-travelled college phase when a girl from my Intro-Anthro class walked in with two coffees, one donut and a small pipe of hashish; at the present moment, unlike the morning in a distant dorm, all I had to go on were a bunch of 8×10 still-shots of memory:  riding in the back of a speeding van, excessively bright lights, and, finally, the vehicle tipping over and sliding to a stop.

My eyes opened, (only the one time, as opposed to the continuous, seamlessly-repeating-sequence that some drugs think you’ll love), and I took stock of the interior of the old van that most recently served as our getaway car: above me, a girl-shaped pile of arms and legs and breasts and such, to my left, Rue hanging upside-down from the empty space where her door used to be and the ‘…and Friends’ limey who was kinda playing the concierge to our misadventures this third night in London.

Before I could say,  ‘What the bloody hell’, (I took a certain professional pride in my ability to blend in with the locals, even when they had glowing arms and a total crush on the woman I was assigned to protect), I heard my boss, Lou Caesare, putting a footnote to my instructions to make certain no harm comes to Rue DeNite, ‘Assess and attack, the best defense is a dead opponent’.

As time returned to one-second-equals-one-sixtieth-of-a-minute, I heard: Rue laughing as she jumped to the street, that Moonshadow guy asking her about something I couldn’t see, a really strange sound approaching the van and, from my prisoner-ette a surprisingly lucid, “My name is Isla Sora, implant remote number 314159…”

At that moment, the back door of the van disappeared, so I unlocked my prisoner’s ankle ‘cuffs and pulling her along, got out and stood on reasonably-solid pavement where the English guy was pointing towards the back-passenger door of a fairly nice SUV; the source of the strange noise turned out to be a fricken rocket launcher and overhead we were treated to a midnight sun that made a noise like a big-assed ceiling fan.

I felt two things as I moved towards our newest getaway car, my Glock pressing against my back instead of it’s holster and disappointment that I let my prisoner get the drop on me while still in handcuffs… total déjà vu from that college morning so long ago.

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise

Hey, gonna try something different this week. Our story (me and Tom‘s) is moving right along and we’re getting up there in terms of ‘chapters’. The hardest thing about writing a Serial Six is providing a new Reader (or a regular Reader who might want to refresh their memory) an opportunity to read the whole thing. So, here is a link to ‘…of Heroes and the MisUnderstood‘.

Prompt word:

ACE

Even with the front door closed, Moonbeam could hear the unmistakable metallic-cough of noise-suppressor equipped rifles followed by the dull thumps of bodies hitting the ground. Oddly enough, the sound seemed to originate inside the two storey house which had the immediate effect of causing his elegant left eyebrow to freeze mid-sarcasm; the front door opened and the lead dancer at Lou Ceasare’s Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge leaned into the foyer,

“Come on, Ace, you’ve got thirty seconds to decide which side you’re on; we leave in fifteen and, if you do choose Curtain Number 2, remind me to make you explain what your interest in my visit here is; btw…twelve…eleven.”

Rocco stepped past Rue, reached under a sofa cushion and, approaching the wounded girl like a professional square dancer at a Minuet competition, turned her left hand behind her back, twirled her to the right and and secured both in a pair of handcuffs; unchecked, her rotation brought her around to face Rocco and, crouching slightly, lifted her over his shoulder. Turning towards the front door he bound her ankles with a second pair of cuffs, unlike the shiny metal on her wrists, these, rather incongruously were red-velvet wrapped; he immediately trotted out to the back of a van idling nose-out in the driveway.

“…Eight” Rue, now behind the wheel of the rust-scaled white Vauxhall Vivero, called out the open driver-side window even as the well-dressed Supervillain ran through the glare of headlights on his way to the front passenger side door, “As my boss Lou is fond of saying, when you’re off home turf, it never hurts to take along a button man or two, you know, keep the surprise visit factor to a minimum.”

Slamming the van into Drive before Moonbeam had both feet in, Rue DeNite stamped on the accelerator, side-swiping a Volvo parked on the opposite side of the street as she turned left; the bang of the collision was punctuated by a female shriek of pain and male laughter from the rear of the van; “Rocco, remind me to give our Superhosts here a 4.8 Star rating for our little airbnb stay.”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise.

(Still searching for a convention to make it easy on the new Reader to catch up. How about we say, ‘Last installment: Tom’s ‘Tattoo’)

Prompt word:

NAIL

“If our little ninja-ette doesn’t wake up in the next ten seconds, we’re outa here; screw the deposit, the airbnb rental contract is through one of Lou’s holding companies and besides, I’m pretty damn sure I declined both the optional homicidal au pair and enhanced-human butler,” Rue glanced at the girl on the floor whose arms were twitching as Rocco did something to her ear lobe with the nail of his right thumb and forefinger; without further comment she turned to the man who called himself Moonbeam.

“Tell, me, Mr. Beam, did someone hit a mute button on me when I wasn’t looking?”

Moonbeam, looking down at the girl briefly, immediately touched his index finger to his ear, sub-vocalized a short interrogative and received a barely-audible, but clearly negative response; never taking his eyes off the girl and Rocco, addressed Rue, a frown putting his words in italics, “We’ve all been subject to a certain degree of social ‘what-the-fuck’ this evening, Miz DeNite, but your companion ministering to the girl on the floor appears to have acquired a red dot on his shoulder.”

Seeing the suspicion in Rue’s eye, the envoy from the Co-ordination of Supervillains parried with a wry smile, “Ain’t none of my people, chica. Such a ham-fisted attempt at violence as using snipers and laser sights is beyond gauche, we’re citizens of the last civilized monarchy, after all.

Fortunately my transportation two doors down the street is a quite sufficiently kevlar’d Maybach GLS; I suggest we repair to the getaway car, my boss frowns on excessive use of superpowers with it’s inevitable collateral damage, the local constabulary get so worked up and my mission included a directive to be discrete at all costs.”