- Bomb Texas for freedom -

China town was empty, the cold must have scared everyone off. I was in a star bucks that was 5 minutes to closing when my contact arrived.

He looked exactly how I thought he would, striped shirt, beret, curly mustache, and chain smoking tiny cigarettes. In other words, French. I bummed a smoke and he got a cappuccino.

“You look different from what I expect monsieur crackhead”

“Really, and how I am supposed to look?”

“From your writing, I expected a fire in your eyes. A smirk on your lips, and your hair longer and screaming the devil may care!!”

“Un hunh” I reply, as I take a fragrant puff from the cigarette.

“And taller, like a giant among men”

“Ok”

“Truly, you must have thought me different?” He put out his cigarette in my mocha, and then lit another. I’m going to make him pay for that, with blood. But I had to play it cool for now.

“No you look pretty much how I expected, French. Although I do have a question for you.”

“Yes, anything.” He says thoughtfully.

“What was it like surrendering in WW2, I’m sure getting tea-bagged by Germans isn’t a pleasant experience.”

“Americans, like the mole. They lay in the ground, and when you dig them up..”

“Look Rimbaud, you contacted me and said you might have something for me. Now cut the crap and spit it out.”

He hunched down, and his voice lowered in volume. He looked out the window and around the starbucks. He didn’t see what he was looking for. He then grew deadly serious, and said “The agents of Microsoft are everywhere. So we must be careful, what do you know about Halo 2?”

“Lots”

“Then you are aware, that it was stolen last week?”

“Oui, no I mean Yes. Yes I am aware, Bungie was bitching about it, IGN were crying like bitches. Why would you contact me about it, all I know is on the news?”

“How would you like to know more?” He asked.

I then decided to be in a forgiving mood over my coffee. A full preview of Halo 2 would be the biggest video game news for the remainder of the decade. In fact if I can get a full review out now, I would actually be able to put RFNYC on the map. I didn’t trust this Frenchman. But I never did trust the French ever. But for this morsel of news, I would have to go against my better judgment.

“Yeah, when do we go?” He nodded and gestured that I follow him.

We left the starbucks and he lead me down a cobblestone street. There were sirens in the air and we ducked under a doorway. When he was convinced the sirens were for someone else we continued to go through the maze of tiny streets that is china town.

He then stopped and knocked on basement opening. The metal sounded hollow. He waited a second, and there was a knocking coming from the other side. My guide, knocked the rest of the pattern and the doors opened.

“Welcome to the underground.” He said with a grand sweeping gesture

Suffice to say, the room was amazing. There were empty glass bottles all over the place, but the art and the hardware they had were expensive, and rare. There were HD-tvs, several gutted Xbox’s, computer and surveillance equipment stacked higher than me.

Finally, what caught my attention wasn’t Halo 2, it was woman who was sitting on a red velvet couch. She had a translucent green Xbox s controller in her hands and she was furiously blasting at a covenant elite.

She looked like a modern Brigitte Bardot. Her hair was tangled into blonde and fire engine red dreadlocks. She had a tight red belly shirt that barely covered her overgrown sweater kittens. Her smooth white belly lead down to an overly tight black leather pants, and boots that had three inch heels.

She had a VR helmet on, she took it off and revealed eyes so blue they looked crystallized. She shook her hair out and smiled at me.

She luxuriantly stretched and prowled her way to where I was standing. She looked at my guide and coughed.

“This of course is Marie,” he said. “She is our leader, and the one who requested you here.”

“Allo” she said. She took my hands and kissed my cheeks gently with an open mouth.

“Bonjour” I said

“I love your, how you say?”

“Website?”

“OUI! Yes website! It has the passions of a poet, yet it has the torture of a guilty man. Ah but your vie seule stories? How I long to be one.” She spoke excitedly, like a great man has came to make her acquaintance. A man like a past Beatle or a great politician has arrived. She didn’t seem to mind the fact I was just another faceless blogger in a sea of one million retarded live journal users.

“If you were in the single life series you would have broken my heart.”

“No no no I could never do that.”

“Of course if we met sooner, there wouldn’t have been a single life series.”

“It is you that has broken my heart, only here to see halo and not me.” She gave a teasing pout,

“Next time send a pic.”

“Yes, you Americans and your email etiquette. We can talk later about us, for now we talk about Halo.

…To be continued…