Peyton Sorenson 2

Peyton Sorenson

The lights hung low in the concrete arches of the aquatic streets of Venice making them near indistinguishable due to the rain that poured down like sheets from an unrelenting opaque sky. The bar at the Hotel Yorba was crowded and near closing time. Peyton Sorenson, the bar keep had just called a water taxi, a vaporetto, for one of her regular patrons, Stanley.

Stanley came to see Peyton once or twice a week. He worked for a special division of the military that tracked the trajectories of high velocity weapons in the upper atmosphere and was stationed in the deep south pacific ocean most of the time in a island chain called the Marshal Islands . His Island was named The Kwajalean Atoll and he afectionetly called it “The Catchers Mit” because this is where weapons of all kinds were caught and data was recorded for official use by the military and The Solomon Corporation which is better known as Solomon United.

They had a special relationship that no one on the outside quite understood. He always brought her a brown paper sack that was stained all the way through with heavy cooking grease. Rolled up in the bag were two of the most toxic Hunan wanton’s Saint Mark’s Square could produce, Peyton’s favorite. Also in the bag were half a dozen fortune cookies that all had the same thing inscribed on them vertically on the inside; the number (thirty three).

Peyton smiled at Stan as she always did and accepted the bag as she turned to see a familiar face walking her direction.

Siren walked into the bar and sat next to Stanley and ordered an extra dirty electric Skye martini stirred.

“Excuse me sir is this seat taken?”, said Siren softly to Stanley with no pretense trapped in her voice.

“No ma’am she is all yours.” spoke Stan like a Texas gentleman as he stepped casually away.

“Stan, I’ll see you next week.” Replied Peyton and he was gone without a response. Like a ghost.

“Siren you seem to keep lock step with the algorithmic dance of the rain patterns. They whispered to me you’d be coming this way soon.” Said Peyton.

“How is Stanley doing? Does he still commute from Nepal? Khatmandu is it? An odd ball that Stan.” Siren replied.

“Let me just clean up a little here and we can be on our way. I have a few things I want to show you. It has been ages….”

With the flip of a light switch behind the cleaned bar glasses and ash trays there was a loud pop but by the way both Siren and Peyton composed themselves they were fully expecting it. The room went pitch black.

The crowd faded as quickly as did the lights. Nothingness was swallowed up in nothingness. Nirvana reaked of Nirvana. Movement began to occur subtle at first and then more obvious. Siren felt herself loosing conciousness and did not understand why because alcohol had no effect on her system as far as intoxification is concerned.

She felt her body shutting down systematicatlly one system at a time. First she lost control of her hands because she could not reach for her revolver. Second she lost control of her ocular system because she could not scan to take pictures of her surrounding for when the lights came back on. Each system one be one shut down and in the end only one remained to insure her vitals kept her alive. Siren was helpless and obviously not in under the care of Dr. Feinburg.

Several hours passed in this suspended state of aniotic being were Siren could only speculate as to what was happening to her. She felt sedated. She felt movement. She was confused.


When Siren Finally came to she was in an immaculately constructed recovery room designed by Peyton especially for Siren who was by her side with a doctor standing to Peyton’s immediate right. The space was decorated with scattered light sculpted and bent around odd angels and curves that broke up a space embedded with holographic depth at every glance. A massive collection of glass books made itself the frontispiece of an underground libraric meca of obtuse esoteric knowledge. Sculpted glass from the Island of Burano littered the place like frozen water tounges anxious to speak their stories into existence. The room itself appeared much larger on the inside than it did on the outside. Its design lent itself to the notion that much like the inner core of
Siren’s interior life there was much more refined a nature than the cavalier life of solitary calloused assassin. The surroundings seemed to be a natural extension of her inner make up but she hid this make up well Peyton among very few other in this world knew her and Peyton Siren trusted.
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