Chapter 30C: Another Attack

He pushed Don's bike out to the sidewalk. He turned and waved a final goodbye to Tasha. He then evaluated things and decided to try and ride his bike. The thought of having done what he'd allowed to happen with Tasha was bothering him. He needed some real distraction from those thoughts. He got seated and began peddling. While his left leg did ache with the effort, it wasn't too bad. He glanced down and wondered whether that thigh injury might be reduced in size and coloration from what it had shown earlier in the day. It certainly hadn't bothered him so much while he and Tasha had been so engaged in their getting physically reacquainted.

Huh! Maybe being fifteen allows for fast recovery from these injuries. Or, could it be Don's physiology? I wonder what might be goin' on...

It was a nice, hot, middle September afternoon as he headed home to the Nichols household. He biked along and felt that his leg injury wasn't really bothering him too much. This allowed him to go over what had just happened with Tasha. That little girl had attitude and an appetite that wasn't anything like what she appeared to be. She had been an enthusiastic lover over the past hour or so and he was still trying to assimilate her very obvious passion.

He had come up along in front of a small, familiar strip shopping center when he noticed the surge of a dark SUV out of its parking lot into the traffic just in front of him. Instead of continuing on along the road it pulled over onto the shoulder and then turned to block the shoulder and sidewalk. As Dan braked the bike he watched all four doors of the vehicle starting to open. Four uniformed people were emerging from the vehicle. The uniforms were dark blue and there were the familiar logos stitched onto them as shoulder patches. He noticed the holstered weapons carried at hip level on the two closest of the four. And their uniform shirts bulged, which indicated the presence of body armor.

SHIT! Not again!

Dan went into automatic response mode. Someone else from the damned program was after him and he didn't have a moment to waste in trying to turn the stopped bike around and escape. He was simply too close for that, being barely 20 feet from the vehicle and the developing deployment of four uniformed individuals. He responded in precise movements. He knew that having seen two of them carrying sidearms meant that all four were armed. Thus, he had a limited means of immediate response. He quickly swung his good leg over and off of the bike while grasping the underside of his bike's seat with his right hand.

He quickly grasped the cord underneath the seat of his bicycle and pulled hard on it. There was a very satisfying snap as the cord ground against its loop and released the cotter pin it had held in place. Dan adjusted Don's hand from the cord to the other release mechanism and pressed upwards with great urgency.

As he was doing this a separate portion of his mind engaged and he reached up to the video-enabled 'chronometer' and pressed down on its green button.

The releasing mechanism for the bike's seat top had been designed with this sort of emergency situation in mind. His rapid and forceful pressure caused the top half of the seat to pop up and backwards from its underlying framework. As he watched his assailants beginning to deploy across his front Dan placed Don's hand into the recessed area formed by the lower part of the bike's seat and took hold of what had been nestled there for the last several weeks.

I shore as Hell hope that this thang is fully charged!

One of the approaching individuals began to say something as he worked the holster strap securing his weapon. "Don Nichols, your are..."

He never finished his statement.

Dan took hold of the Dazer and brought it fore into a modified Weaver stance. That had been how he'd practiced with it and its laser sight complemented that very stable combat stance. He activated the laser with the correct grip pressure and brought it up to point at the open collar of the nearest of his attackers. The man started saying something. Dan quickly and lightly squeezed the trigger and watched the cloud of condensation form around one of the four muzzles of the small weapon as the first of its four darts was discharged. He quickly shifted his aim to the second of his approaching targets.

(For those unfamiliar with the Dazer, it is a modern, non-lethal adaptation of the old C.O.P. [Concealed Off-duty Police] four-barreled derringer. The C.O.P. was manufactured as a stainless steel four shot backup weapon and chambered in .357 Magnum and several other calibers. The Dazer is a similarly sized derringer powered by a CO2 cartridge placed in the grip and discharges four high capacitance darts via release of pressurized gas. Power for the darts and the laser aiming system are maintained by its mounting system. In the case of Don's newly modified bicycle this includes both a set of solar power strips applied to its fenders and an old-fashioned generator attached to one of the wheels. So, Dan had available to him a modern, non-lethal stun-gun when initially assaulted while riding Don's old bicycle. For the discerning reader — don't try searching for the Dazer. That item is the creation of this author's ever-fevered mind ['though, the author does own an original C.O.P.])