Two in the Bush

“I wish that mysticism wasn’t so commercial now. I wish that I couldn’t buy the apocrypha from a street vend. It’s all too damn easy.” Harvard dropped his stub of a cigarette into the plastic cup in front of him. Across from him, Yale ran his scan card over the server plate and paid for their meal.

“ That was a marketed statement.” Yale stood, stretched his legs and worked the kinks out of his knees. They had been sitting for a long time, a very long time. Day had turned into evening, and the waitress had stopped coming by around three.

“ Well, I think it’s true. The modern intellectual is too inundated with all of this once forbidden and closeted information. Nowadays, I can whippy-woo get pieces that in the past man made a name over translating. Now it’s just here.”

Yale shrugged as they started across the street, a slight shuffle in his walk. “ The modern intellectual is judged by a whole different set of rules these days. In the past, you were an intellectual when you translated those pieces, nowadays it’s the synthesis of all that information.

Harvard smacked Yale in the arm as they walked to emphasize his point. “ I know, I know! That’s what I’m saying. They were in a simpler time, when lines were easier to figure out, we have the burden now of that analysis and therefore then, the application!”

“ Of course, we need to be socially conscious.” Harvard hid his smile.

“ Right, right! We have a duty to make sure the church still holds something, it’s the age old debate between science and god!”

Harvard laughed slighty as they reached the other side of the busy street. He checked his reflection in the store mirror in front of him and turned to Yale. “ Science and god, I thought the trans-deminsionalist church of Eden proved that God was a formula.”

Yale shook his head. “ C’mon now, don’t feed me that bullshit, no one has verified their research yet, that'll take at least a week or two.”

Harvard turned away from Yale, still smiling. He cracked his knuckles and reached into his jacket and slid his auto-pistol into his hand. It was large, impressive, and would create havoc. He didn’t need to look to know that Yale was doing the same. As the mark passed them on the busy city street corner, Harvard took half a moment and studied him. He was in a frumpy suit that might have been tailored once, but was baggy now. He was probably on one of those new tailored enzyme diets. His head was shaved, and he had a plate of metal sprayed green coming out his crown. His gait was quick and brisk, and he probably had enhanced legs. Didn’t matter. He didn’t see it coming.

Both men sprayed him with their entire clips. He was dead long before the pieces of him hit the ground. Harvard fired a split second first, which gave him ample time to drop in another clip as Yale finished the guy off. It was public, very public, just as their client wanted. They didn’t need to look at each other to know what was next. Harvard took north, Yale south. They took off.