GUN SALAD

Roulette could feel Marka hovering behind her as she tugged at Morgan’s bindings. She was being considerably less gentle than usual, given his role in blowing the plan, but she had to admit that much of the responsibility fell on her shoulders; he’d only been playing the part she’d assigned him, after all.

“How could you allow this to happen!?” Marka growled, his gaze flicking constantly between her and the bubble-borne building rising rapidly behind them. The girl could see its shadow shifting across the ground, slipping beyond those of the other floating buildings on its progress toward the clouds.

At this rate, it’d rise higher than any of the others! How could she let Beretta get so far out of reach? And in the company of a dangerous criminal, no less! Roulette wanted to kick herself for her negligence…

…But not as badly as Marka did, she reckoned.

“I know, Marka! I’m sorry,” she reiterated for the umpteenth time. “I thought that safe would be… Well, safe. I didn’t bank on Bubba Lee even knowin’ about it. He must’ve rifled through it the last time he came to town.”

“You should have confirmed this with the lawyers beforehand! Now my little girl is up there with that madman, and we have no way of reaching her!”

“I know,” she snapped, though she immediately came to regret her outburst. The girl heaved a sigh, her hands lingering over Morgan’s bandage-bound mouth. “We’ll find a way to get her back, Marka. I promise.”

He grunted skeptically. Roulette screwed up her face and tugged the cloth from Morgan’s mouth, steeling herself against the possibility of more angry complaints.

As expected, the man did not disappoint.

“I’m gettin’ so sick of this!” he hollered, squirming around in the dust like a caterpillar. “Why’s it always me that gets all bound up, huh? I’ve got half a mind to–”

She squeezed her eyes shut and stuffed a bundle of bandages into his open mouth, lacking the patience to bear the brunt of yet another heap of grievances. “I’ll get you out, Morgan,” she reassured him, “but if you say another damn word, I’m gonna slap the ever-lovin’ shit out of you.”

“...Wow, Roulette.” Mimi had evidently arrived in time to hear her threat, looking on in apparent concern as Roulette unspooled the now-placid man from his enclosure. “We’re threatening our friends with violence, now?”

“I can’t hear it right now, Mimi,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not now. Not from you. Just let me alone.”

For better or worse, the girl was allowed to unroll Morgan the rest of the way in silence. Once that was done, they both stood up and dusted themselves off, but neither Morgan nor anyone else seemed keen to meet her eyes.

…So she closed them and took a deep, cleansing breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said on the exhale. “I messed up. The plan’s in shambles, and it’s all my fault. I have no right to treat any of you badly; all I can say is that the pressure’s gettin’ to me. You can hate me for it later, though. For now, we need to get Beretta back. 

“Are you all with me?”

They exchanged glances and, one by one, gave reluctant nods. That would have to be good enough.

“Fine,” she said, peering up at the now-distant law office. It had climbed to an insurmountable height, coming to float high above every other rooftop in town. “We need ideas. Who’s got one?”

“Might be we could shoot it down,” Morgan proposed. “Berry’s still in the safe, most likely. I bet she’d survive even if the building didn’t.”

Marka looked at him incredulously. “You would gamble with Beretta’s life? There is absolutely no guarantee that she would survive such a fall!”

“He’s right,” Roulette agreed. “And, even if we knew she’d survive for a fact, we can’t risk Conrad and Solomon’s lives. That’d make us no better than Bubba Lee.”

“We could get the airship, then,” Mimi suggested. “Bring it alongside the bubble and hope we can jump over to the law office without popping it.”

Roulette rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Better. Still risky. The big problem is it’d take too long–the walk over from the landin’ site was, what, an hour? Hour and a half? That’s a long time to leave Berry to fend for herself…”

It was then that Marka spoke up, his determined gaze fixated on the law office bobbing high above. “I know what we must do,” he said. “We must use my weapons.”

“For what?” Morgan scoffed. “Voidthrower can’t reach up there. And even if it could, it can only affect, what, a six-foot area? That’s not enough to…”

Morgan’s eyes suddenly widened, and judging by the arch of Mimi’s brow, the logic of Marka’s plan had hit home for all of them at once.

“You mean to launch one of us up there,” Roulette concluded. “Shoot one of us with Voidthrower, then spit us out again in the bubble’s direction.”

Marka nodded. “We do not know if such a thing will cause it to pop. But if we want to help, getting into the building is the only way,” he reasoned. “We must take the risk. And none will risk more than the person I launch–it could easily be fatal.”

Roulette didn’t hesitate. “It’s the best chance we’ve got. I volunteer.”

To her surprise, Mimi started shaking her head. “It can’t be you, Rou.”

“What? Why not?”

“Your ability,” she replied. “If Marka shoots you with Voidthrower, you’ll take on that power. Can you imagine the inconvenience of erasing things unexpectedly? With an automatic weapon? You could become a danger to your teammates–more of one than you already are, I mean.”

She had a point. Roulette looked down at her boots, trying to think of some way to get around it. But there was nothing for it; unless she wanted to become a harbinger of unintentional destruction, it would have to be someone else.

It would have to be…

“Morgan,” she said, “you’re up.”

He received the bad news with more grace than usual. “I figured,” he said with a shrug. “Not exactly thrilled about it, but if it’s for Berry, I guess willin’ to take a trip into the wide blue yonder. Just make sure you aim careful, alright Marka? I’d like to at least have a shot at comin’ out of this whole business in one piece.”

Marka took aim at him and smiled nervously, taking care to center the barrel on his midsection as accurately as he could. “You are a brave man, Morgan,” he murmured, “and you have my thanks.”

A trigger-pull later, Morgan was gone.

—

Morgan’s cheeks flapped in the wind as he hurtled through the sky. His eyes watered, struggling to track the blurry buildings around him, but it was no use–the sheer speed of his ascent made spatial awareness impossible.

…That is, until the broad side of some structure or another loomed into his field of vision straight ahead.

Fortunately, in that last crucial second of flight, he’d felt himself losing velocity. Maybe that was why he was able to smack, spread-eagle, into its western wall without dying in the process? As he collapsed to the small patch of torn-up ground still clinging to its foundation, he dared to question whether he’d even so much as broken anything; all things considered, he actually felt pretty spry! After the initial bout of shock and incredible pain, he managed to rise up into a sitting position without so much as a–

Oof.

No. Nope, that was definitely a broken rib. Maybe two. The agony of it gave him a coughing fit, drawing further attention to the tender, winded state of his lungs, and he lay back down for a fair few minutes before mustering the will to rise again. When he finally did, Morgan was forced to come to terms with an uncomfortable realization:

This wasn’t the law office. He’d been shot into the side of another building entirely.

He glanced blearily over his shoulder at the way he’d come, and sure enough, the surface of a great, all-encompassing sphere lay in that direction. That sight–in addition to the fact that his lofty perch wasn’t currently plummeting to the ground–meant that he had successfully permeated the bubble without popping it. 

He smiled softly to himself. Maybe there was some hope of rescuing Beretta after all?

Morgan ambled to his feet and looked up at the side of the building, but it bore no distinguishing features from what he could see. Just a couple windows, but the scarcity of ground below either sill made it difficult to get a good look inside. That same feature of the terrain made it necessary to squeeze his back to the wall and shimmy in order to get around to the front, which he attempted with no small measure of consternation. 

After a half-minute of grunting and making every effort not to look down, he managed to pick his way across the narrow band of earth below the window and reach the other side. To Morgan’s relief, the area in front of the building appeared to host a lot more ground to stand on. He strode toward it gratefully and moved to round the corner, eager to see just what sort of establishment he’d had the pleasure of colliding with.

…But, before he could, the barrel of a rusty-looking shotgun poked out around the corner first.