This piece was written over quite a long period of time- I started it, and then let it go for a month or two. Then I came back to it, wrote some more, and I've been gone for most of the summer. I just finished it. It has always seemed somewhat dumb to me while I've been writing it, but when I go back to read it over, it has its moments. I'll let you decide. Sent to ZiggyC

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BANG!
The Action-Adventure Short-Fiction Piece of the summer! If you read one piece of amateur literature this year, make it BANG!



Jack hit the ground running, his feet pounding in time with his heart as he weaved back and forth on the concrete, sweat dripping down his brow. Gunshots rang out from behind him. Two- no three pistols, and maybe a semiautomatic. God, he hoped not. As he ran, a bullet struck a large blue mailbox on the sidewalk next to him. Jack nearly burst out laughing. If the cops ever caught these guys, they just screwed themselves over- a conviction for attempted murder was hard to get, but tampering with the mail was a felony and one that was a damn sight easier to convict on. That was the problem with terrorists- they didn't know America's customs.

A flash of yellow caught his eye. It was a cab, just ahead of him. He swung around to the left side and jumped in. "Drive!" he shouted. The taxi's wheels squealed in protest as the driver obediently pulled away.

Jack was never really sure if his name was a self-fulfilling prophecy or just a sick coincidence. But so far, his life had followed in the footsteps of those before him: Jack Bauer, Jack Shepard, Jack Bristow, Jack O'Neill… adventure and conspiracy were drawn to him like flies to rotten fruit. He could never find a really convincing reason why. Perhaps it was the hair. All he knew was that a shadowy team of multinational terrorists were currently after him, and that the fate of something-or-other definitely, definitely, probably lay in his hands.

"So, buddy, now that we've solved that crisis, why don't you tell me where the hell I'm headed?" The cab driver's voice broke Jack out of his reverie. "Ten blocks up and hang a right." Jack pulled out his cell phone- the signal was blocked. No surprise there. These terrorists had access to technology, and good technology at that. What a shock. He was going to be in for a long night. A block ahead, Jack spotted another terrorist, crouched and aiming at the car. "Turn NOW!" he shouted, and the taxi driver obeyed instantly.

"I better be getting a damn good tip," he sighed. "You're one demanding son-of-a-bitch, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah. You can just drop me off here if you want." The lock on the door clicked. "I don't think so," drawled the driver. Jack's mind raced for a minute and came to the inevitable conclusion. "You do know that I have a gun, right?"

"Don't be so sure about that, tough guy."

Jack pulled his gun and aimed at the back of the driver's head, and pulled- click. Empty. Damn! When did they have the time to- that temptingly seductive (seductively tempting?) hook-up last night! If only the terrorists had less hot women on their side, they'd be a hell of a lot easier to defeat, thought Jack. Blood pumping, he slammed the butt of the gun through his down and grabbed the door handle from the outside. Opening the door, he leaped out and rolled, hitting the pavement way too fast and ripping up his brand-new suit. He went through a lot of suits.

As the taxi screeched to a halt, Jack ducked into the nearest building he could find and darted down a hallway. The videophone was working, thank god. As he started to turn it on, however, he spotted a small hole in the floor. He kneeled down. It was pitch black, circular, and about two inches in diameter. How very odd. Jack dropped a penny down- nothing. Puzzled, Jack stared at it for another minute before figuring it out. Ah, right, a plot hole. He turned back to his videophone. The screen flickered on and his boss appeared onscreen, as stoic and unemotional as ever.

"You know, if you're really all that important, then why is it that I'm always the one who has to get things done around here?" queried Jack.
"I thought we'd been over this. I don't like to get my hands dirty."
"Right. But it's kind of a bum deal for me."
"That's why you get hazard pay."
"Ah. So- who is it this time? The Arabs? The Chinese? The French?"
"The French?"
"You never know, Mr. Porter. They have a way of sneaking up on you. The Portuguese? Uhm. The Maltese?"
"Jack, what the hell? Are you stupid? Actually, it's the Russians."
"Again? I thought we dealt with them."
"You'd think so, but no. Anyways, they've acquired a…" Jack's mind began to tune Mr. Porter out. He'd heard it all before and there were really only a few variations of it. Sometimes it was a nuclear missile, sometimes it was a dirty bomb, or even something biological. Those were what he liked to think of as the ice cream in the pain-in-the-ass cone that was whatever crisis he had to deal with. Then, there were the toppings. Hostage situations, rebellious presidents' daughters, air-headed love interests… they usually just made things more complicated. Finish it off with a nice sprinkle of getting shot it and you had yourself one hell of a day. It always took a day. No more, no less. And no matter how the story went, it ended with him having to kill some terrorists anyways. So he just nodded grimly and tried to look concern until the speech was over. "…destroying the world as we know it today. And that, Jack, is why I need you to…" Jack zoned out again, "…saving us all." He nodded and flipped off the video phone.

Twenty minutes later Jack had boarded a plan to Russia. He hated dealing with the Russian terrorists. Mostly because Russia was too damn cold. It was a pain in the ass to shoot wearing a parka.

After a minor incident involving an attempting hijacking of the plane he was on and a handful of other bomb threats, Jack landed in Russia. Outside of the airport, two black cars idled, waiting to pick him up. He knew how this went- one of them was his actual contact, while the other one was simply another terrorist attempt to kidnap him. After carefully studying the first car, Jack determined that it carried the terrorist. It was something about the hubcaps. He pulled out his gun and fired through the window. Pulling the door open, he looked inside- oops. Bad call. Guess he'd have to drive, then. Jack pushed the corpse out of the driver's seat and turned on the ignition. Then, in a burst of extrasensory perception, he shoved open the door and rolled out as the car exploded. So the first car was the decoy after or all. Or maybe they both were. Jack hailed a cab.

As always, the first step to successfully neutralizing any terrorist threat was to get on the internet. Jack reflected on the fact that he could have easily done this from someplace warm, but such was life. He found a secure terminal equipped with all the latest hacking software necessary for the 21st century action hero and sat himself down. He taped aimlessly at the keys for a while. The software would do most of the work for him. For some reason, it tended to work better when he banged on the keyboard, though. Maybe something about needed randomized input. Yeah, that explained it adequately enough to shut up the tech geeks. Huh, I wonder what unrandomizing the input would do, he mused. Was unrandomizing even a word? He began tapping 'z' repeatedly. A little bit of smoke began to pour out of the computer. Ooookay. Maybe not such a good idea.

It was time to infiltrate the secret hideout. The secret hideout was never too hard to find. Short of labeling it with a flashing neon sign saying "Illicit activity within!" the terrorists usually were pretty damn blatant. Cruising in his rental car (Jack shuddered to think of the insurance his boss was paying on the car) he spotted a likely candidate. Dilapidated old warehouse, shady cars parked outside… yeah, that had to be it. Jack laughed as he locked his car. There was something delightfully ironic about it, as if he was giving the finger to fate. Hey, I may be killed by terrorists, but at least they're not going to be able to steal my car without breaking a window.

The loading door was unlocked. There were two guards outside, but Jack made quick work of them. Perhaps terrorists would do better, Jack pondered, if they invested more money into a smaller amount of security guards. Well, easy come, easy go. They never seemed to care too much about their guards anyhow.

Stealth was the order of the day as he entered the complex. Being run by terrorists somehow upgraded it from a warehouse to a complex. He stepped softly inside, cursing his shoes. About halfway to the other side of the room, Jack stubbed his toe on a bolt and let out a curse. From across the room, a set of ears perked up, and the man said something to his comrade in Russian. Damn! What to do, what to do. Jack let out a soft 'Meow.' Oh, shit. That was probably not the best move, thought Jack. The men now turned, each with a firearm.

Jack quickly scanned the room. One door in the corner, or out the way he came. No guts, no glory. He dashed for the door and as he shut it on the other side, noticed a lock and deadbolt. How convenient. He locked it and set the bolt. As he turned away from the door, he prepared himself to do a double-take. That's usually how it happened, anyways. And sure enough, a man in a suit was standing there- decidedly not Russian. It was his boss, Brian Porter. "Hello Jack." Sheesh, was he always this serious?
"What the fuck?"
"Calm down, Jack."
"What is this supposed to be? You're secretly working for the terrorists? Some crap like that?"
"Jack, I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that."
"Really."
"Really. Come with me." Cautiously, Jack followed him to an elevator shaft. The elevator began to rise. That's funny, he thought. I don't remember this building going beyond the first floor when I looked at it from the outside. Well, it was cloudy…
The elevator continued to rise. 4, 5, 6… 10… 20... 40, 41, 42. With a ding, the doors opened to a pristine office. "Isn't this all a bit… cliché?" asked Jack. "I mean, the office in the sky, you confronting me with some shocking reveal?"
"Oh, it's shocking alright. You see, Jack-"

But Jack had already tuned him out. It wasn't that he wasn't interested, it was simply force of habit. He had been through the plot-twist, the shocking reveal, the villain's boast, the hostage's plea, the President's speech and the love interest's tears so many times before that his brain was no longer wired to listen to them.

"Jack!" Brian's sharp yell brought him back to reality.
"Sorry, boss. You know how it is."
"Well, listen up this time." Brian looked down at the ground, as if embarrassed. "There's a lot to tell you, Jack. You see, this is all a television show. None of it is real. It's just entertainment. You know how America is hungry for entertainment, Jack. What could we do? They kept wanting us to push the boundaries, kept wanting more. We had no other choice. They were ravenous, Jack! Every time we'd put you through some situation, they'd always want a new one- bigger, better, and with more explosions." As Jack began to speak, Brian raised a hand. "Ah, yes. I know. How could it all be just a television show? You've been injured for real plenty of times before. Well, you see, Jack, everything is not as it seems."

Brian pressed a button on his desk and everything shimmered. "For you see, this is all really a dream. It all took place inside your head. None of it actually happened. Just a fantasy, Jack, just the dreams of a crazy young man longing for adventure, for a little pizzazz in his life. I'm sorry, Jack, but that's the truth." As Jack started towards him, glaring, he continued, "But not all of the truth. You were set up by your family, Jack. This was all just a birthday present. Get it? This was your present, Jack! Happy birthday, boy. Let me call in your parents."

With a practiced motion, Jack's fist shot up and nailed Brian in the jaw. As Brian spun, Jack's palm connected with the base of his neck and he collapsed on the floor. When you've lived in an adventure flick your entire life, you get a flair for making the dramatic look easy.