DISTRACTION
by K. Jeffery Petersen

A pair of crows squabble over the last of the bread I had thrown,
two blurry, black streaks against the light concrete of the park path. Beyond 
them, four children play tag in a grassy field. I glance at the sky, it is gray 
and threatening to rain.

I expel a low, long sigh from my lungs. Where the hell are you? I wonder. I 
would ask someone the time, but only the children are close by.

Off in the distance, I hear a deep boom. The children stop their game and look 
in that direction for a few moments, until they hear the police sirens. 
Reassured that "all's right with the world" they begin to scamper around again.

"Which building this time?" I wonder, "A bank? Perhaps a federal building." 
Oklahoma was the first, but federal buildings became very popular battlegrounds 
only after San Francisco. Maybe it's for dramatic effect.

A second explosion goes off, this one closer to the park. I stand up and sigh as 
the red-yellow ball of fire slowly rises above the near skyscrapers. I don't 
suppose it would be too much to ask for one day of peace and quiet.	

I step once to the left, and hold out my right arm. The first, some sort of 
blazing effigy,  flies at where I just was, causing a neat clothesline which 
brings his velocity to near zero. I let the transferred momentum swing me 
around, and land a neat kick to the nape of his neck. I suppose bones shatter at 
the strike, for he falls and does not rise again, however, his two slightly 
slower (or is it smarter?) buddies  are a more imperative target of my 
concentration.

They are polar opposites in appearance. One is tall and thin, a body of angles. 
He looks like an oversized version of some gremlin you'd expect to find in a 
paper shredder with all the blades covering him.

The third is short and fat. Most people would laugh at that, but most people do 
not know about kinetic reversal. It is not a common process, but becoming more 
popular to have that kind of shift.

They are good enough that they do not try to spout some speech about their goals 
and ambitions. If they had, they would die very quickly; I'm waiting for my 
girlfriend, and don't need any grief.

One of the kids tags another.

The angle guy charges me, razor limbs moving at speeds far faster than I can 
track. The short one begins to run around behind me. Good, I think, They don't 
work together well. 

I could probably take out the angle guy easily enough, but if the short one is a 
kinetic reversal, I could be here a long time. Instead, I dance back away from 
the whirling blades and make it easy for them by moving in between them.

They're stupid: they both charge. A light jump sends be above angle guy's 
attacks. Instead they run though short one, causing a number of meaty squelches.

I'm at the top of my arc when the kinetic reversal kicks in. With a "WHOMP" 
angle guy is flying away, all his energy shoved back at him. He may survive, but 
it is more likely that he became a greasy smear on some building.

The tagged child manages to complete his turn and try and tag back when I 
lightly land on the ground. I sit back down on the park bench and watch them 
again.