City of Three: Rodiger and the Uzi-Sword

“Rodiger, no!” cried Hamlicon.

Rodiger, the man in the hooded black cloak, smirked and bobbed up and down. “Hehheh, gonna wipe you all out.” He pulled a bizarre weapon from under his coat.

“Oh nyyooooo!” cried Labetta, a woman draped in an red ball gown. She sported a gold rimmed hat and an pink umbrella. It was an outlandish outfit. “He has an uzi-sword! We’re all dewwwwmed…!”

Meket nudged Perephandi, “What’s an uzi-sword?” he asked. “An uzi that shoots swords?”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” said Perephandi. “It’s a sword with an uzi attached to it.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Back to the issue,” said Polidom. “Rodiger, you need to relax.”

“Hehheh, I’ll relax when I sleep.” Rodiger continued bobbing up and down, now grinning.

“Hamlicon, can you interject?” asked Polidom.

“Why yes, of course.” Hamlicon cleared his throat. “Rodiger, no!” he cried.

“Thank you, friend.” Polidom bowed his head. “Rodiger there are plenty of times when you should relax before sleeping. It’s good to set aside some time for wholesome fun, like tiger-punching and robot-slapping. You must relax.”

“Hehheh, I’ll relax when I’m dead.” said Rodiger, still bobbing relentlessly, his grin now wider.

“What the hell is wrong with this place? Why do you have an uzi-sword, Rodiger? I mean, what’s the appeal? Can’t you just have a sword and an uzi?” asked Meket.

“Yes, this is all rather unconventional of you. Couldn’t you use a sword uzi like a proper fellow?” Labetta inquired.

Rodiger, still grinning and bobbing, darted his eyes back and forth. “No, uzi-swords are best.”

“I just don’t get why you can’t have both individual and separate from each other.” Meket stated flatly.

“It’s a fairly new thing,” Perephandi explained. “Rodiger’s a real progressive.”

“Just doing what’s fair. It’s like a compromise between my weapons.” said Rodiger.

“Merely out of curiosity, why don’t you call it a sword-uzi?”

“No!” Rodiger yelled. “It’s an uzi-sword! It’s what’s best!”

“Relax, Rodiger…Hamlicon, could you…” Polidom waved his hand at Hamlicon.

“Rodiger, n-” Hamlicon was cut short by a burst of gunfire from Rodiger’s direction. Everyone scattered. Meket and Perephandi dashed to cover around a corner. Meket peered out and saw Rodiger wielding the bizarre weapon. It was like the handle of the sword had been replaced with an uzi. Rodiger rested the back of the blade on his shoulder and fired at the fleeing folk.

“F***! He killed Hamlicon!” cried Meket.

“He seems obsessively assertive in his cause. That’s seldom a good thing.” said Perephandi.

“He has a casue?”

“Certainly. He’s clearly a big hyphen-proponent.”

“I really don’t see the appeal. Why can’t an uzi be an uzi and be left at that?”

“You mean a bullet uzi, yes?”

“What? No! An uzi. Just a regular, plain old uzi. And if he wants to use a sword too, that’s fine. Just so long as the uzi remains unique and individual.”

Perephandi blinked. “That’s absurd. Bullet is just a specification, like sword, or lamb chop. What’s really important is that the uzi name is spread. How else will uzis be recognized as a group in comparison to M-16s and .45s?”

“Why can’t each uzi be recognized for it’s own individual accomplishments? You don’t call it a trigger uzi or a barrel uzi just because it has those parts, right?”

Their discussion was cut short by another flurry of gunfire from Rodiger.

“Fairest compromise! YAGAYAGAYAGA!” he screamed.

“Hmm, perhaps he’s taking things a little out of hand…” Perephandi noted.

“Any way to stop him?” asked Meket.

“Social nomenclature reforms, but I’m not sure we have the time…”

“No, no, no! I meant killing him.”

“Oh. Indeed. We can use an individual grenade.”

“Like one grenade, or what? Is “individual” the ammunition, like with guns?”

Haughty laughter. “Of course not! Guns and bombs are completely different.”

Meket smacked his forhead then jabbed his head up. “So it’s a single bomb?”

“In a manner of speaking. It will separate the uzi from the sword; divorce the weapons from one another, so to speak.”

“So he’d just have an uzi and a sword?”

“Bullet uzi,” Perephandi corrected, “and a sword. I know, it seems a little extreme, but it must be done.”

Meket gave in. “Ah. Extreme. Right.”

“Yes, I know, it bothers me too, dear Meket,” Perephandi pulled the pin from a grenade, “but it must be done!” He lobbed the explosive around the corner. Meket waited for the bang of the grenade to ring out, but there was no such sound. There was a strange noise, like the final scribbling of pen on paper, followed by moaning and sobbing from Rodiger.

“He dead?” Meket asked, poking his hand around the corner.

“Only on the inside…” Perephandi closed his eyes and shook his head.

Meket and Perephandi walked over to the center of the square. Rodiger sat, a sword to his right. The body of Hamlicon lay several feet away, along with a few others.

Meket kicked the weapons away from Rodiger. “I don’t know why you’re all broken up,” commented Meket. “You would’ve had two weapons.”

“You don’t understand,” said Rodiger, still sobbing. “My weapons were a team. They spent all their time together, and they were defined by each other. It was the perfect weapon union, the fairest compromise…”

Perephandi knelt down and patted Rodiger’s back. “I understand, friend. It was a harmonious marriage of slashery and gunplay.”

Polidom returned with a score of guards. “Thank you, Perephandi. We’ll handle things from here.”

As the guards hauled Rodiger off, Polidom stopped by the body of Hamlicon.

“He was one of the greatest socio-political voices of his time, even if a bit overtoned and obnoxious. ‘Tis a damn shame.”

“A damn shame…” echoed Perephandi.

Meket and Perephandi walked away from the city square. Meket turned to Perephandi.

“Those weapons would’ve worked just fine as seperately.”

“Quite possibly.”

“And that Polidom was a sleezy politician, letting Hamlicon take a bullet and not helping ‘til after the fact.”

“Almost certainly true.”

“Then why’d you let all that happen?”

“Well, there’s just no sense in it. People with three syllables in their names have a completely different set of motivations; appeasing others and all that. Haven’t you read your Kohlberg?”

“Perephandi, half the things you say make half as much sense as a chopstick in Moscow.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand theories of morality, what with you having two syllables in your name.”