THE BLACK ARCHER
in
A NEW LEAF
John Bowman floats in a deep blackness. Unable to see anything with his eyes, his mind relives all of the horrible things he has done...
He sees himself lighting a Vietnamese village on fire...sees the blood streak across a young Thai hooker's face...sees the arrow sink into the chest of a man who might have stopped the overthrow of Lon Nol...sees too many images. Tears float away from him as his eyes clench tightly.
Years go by.
Bowman feels a new sensation. The first new sensation he's had in what must be at least a decade. His hands grasp at the thing he has bumped into, and he lunges for this new thing with all of his strength and all of his soul. As he realizes that this thing is a body, he is blinded by a sudden burst of light.
Bowman blinks at the harsh light and pushes himself up onto his knees. After a few minutes, his eyes adjust to the ambient light found in a darkened River City alley at night. The body is that of Taj, he realizes as he expels a lunch he ate in 1976.
A Week Later...
Bowman caressed the new bow he'd bought himself. It was still stunning how much has changed in the almost thirty years he'd been floating in Hell. Even something as basic as a bow. The bows he had been used to were at least twice the size of this futuristic-looking little thing. Still, it definitely did the job. Combined with a nifty little "neofleece" face and neck warmer and some black clothing, he was all set. He would finally be able to go out and start making up for all the bad things he had done. It had been difficult to keep inactive for a week, but he needed to be prepared if he was going to make a difference.
Leaping from the roof of his tenement, Bowman landed with a thud and a creak in one of his knees on the abandoned parking garage next door. He was going to have to get used to this sort of thing again. Fortunately, the sound of automatic weapons fire from a few streets over sounded like it would provide the opportunity. Bowman leapt across the alley onto a fire escape, climbed up to the roof and ran across to a good spot.
Looking down on the scene, Bowman saw a band of five men, dressed head to toe in some sort of bulky clothing that was obviously bulletproof. They were standing in front of a bank and firing wildly at the surrounding police cars and the cops huddled behind them. Bowman jumped down onto a balcony a few stories below, then swung over it, landing on top of a parked van. He pulled out a whistling arrow and fired it over their heads. The bank robbers looked around in confusion and an odd quiet fell over the scene.
"Alright, boys, that's enough, drop your weapons!" shouted Bowman.
The robbers looked at each other, looked at their guns, looked at Bowman. One of them yelled back, "What are you, a moron, don't you see what's going on here? We're fricking bulletproof here!"
Bowman shot him in the chest and he crumpled to the ground. "You're not arrowproof," remarked Bowman as he leapt down behind the van just in time to avoid a hail of bullets from the other men. Bowman dashed across the street, firing off two arrows before ducking behind an old volkswagen bus, dropping another two of the men. One of the remaining pair took off in the other direction while his friend advanced on Bowman's cover, riddling it with bulletholes.
Once the firing stopped and Bowman heard the man reloading, he stepped out from behind the bus and fired an arrow into the barrel of the man's weapon. Bowman then walked up and socked him in the jaw, knocking him down. Pulling the man's hood off, Bowman asked, "So are you going to be a nice little dirtbag and turn yourself in now?"
The man looked at him. "Alright, you got me, but you're going to have a hell of a lot to answer for when the Enigma gets his hands on you."
"Enigma? Who or what is the Enigma?" The robber sneered, but Bowman had experience in interrogation and started to apply pressure. He was sure this mug would talk given a few more uninterrupted moments, but just then a police sniper shot the man in the head.
"What the hell?" exclaimed Bowman as he looked up to see River City's Finest descending on him. Bowman pulled out the other special arrow he had made, prayed that it would work, and fired it up onto a rooftop. As the winch pulled him into the air, one or two of the policemen below fired off a halfhearted shot at him, but their hearts didn't seem to be in it. 'I guess the River City Rag is right' thought Bowman, surprised to find the hippy-oriented newspaper had been right about River City's cops being a little too enthusiastic.
Bowman rushed across the rooftops in the hopes of catching up to the man who had fled. He had just about lost him when he heard the sound of automatic fire and headed for it. When Boman got there, he found a dead motorcycle cop and the gunman running down an alley. Bowman shot the man once in each calf and used a third arrow to pin his weapon hand to a garbage can he had grabbed.
Bowman advanced with an arrow drawn. "I know you're not going to give this up easy, so I'm ready to do it the hard way, but just for fun...Who or what is the Enigma?"
"I...I can't tell you"
"Wrong answer." Bowman drew the arrow back to his cheek, aimed at the man's groin.
"No!...No, you don't understand! I want to tell you, really! It's just that he's, well, he's an Enigma!"
"Yeah, I got the name. Tell me more."
"No, see, it's not just his name. He's an enigma. No one understands him. please don't shoot me."
Bowman heard sirens approaching and realized he'd have to leave. "Alright, but just this once." Bowman leapt onto the fire escape and pulled himself up.
Posted by Bill at July 30, 2003 06:11 PM