Miguel woke up in agony. His whole body felt as if it was on fire, which admittedly, he expected it to be, seeing how his last memory was a blast of chemical flames rocketing towards his face. It took him a few seconds to realize that on top of the pain, he was also suffocating and blinded, and that he could not move his arms.

His mind was in a weird, distant place from which he registered his own agony, but mostly as a confusing puzzle, because he could not make sense of how his body worked. His brain insisted that he just got blasted to bits, and refused to acknowledge it had a body to control again. Only when the suffocation became unbearable did he try to move his face and take a breath. It took enormous effort to lift his head, which he murkily realized must have been buried, because he was up to his ears in wet soil.

Panicking, he heaved up and managed to get a glimpse of sunlight, but since his arms were still held firmly underground, he just fell face-first back into the hole he just left. He tried kicking and pushing with his legs, but that only made things worse, as the loose dirt got into his mouth and nostrils.

“Hold still dammit! I’ll try to pull you out! "he recognized the voice of the cop, who by all rights should have been roasted to crisp along with Miguel himself.

He felt a tug at his legs, and then someone grabbed him around the considerable girth of his waist and hoisted him up.

“damn you bastard, why do you have to be so fat!” snarled the cop and pulled again. Miguel felt as if another tug like that would dislocate his shoulders and snap his elbows, but finally, the soil gave in and he was pulled free.

He fell on his ass coughing out dirt, when some force spun him around. He found himself face to face with a powerful, and dangerous-looking naked man. Or at least a half of a man, because the cop was buried up to the waist in the same soil he was pulled from.

“I'm so sorry!" Miguel squealed weakly.

Even though the cop was half-underground, he still towered over him by a head or so. Muscular and wiry, the man looked the exact opposite of his flabby and obese form. The cop was also strikingly handsome, but unnervingly, the same as some poisonous snakes were often beautiful despite their obvious deadliness.

“What the fuck did you do!?" the officer asked, grabbing him by the throat.

“Akh!" he croaked. "What?“

“Where the hell are we?“

“How…how would I know?" he looked around, and every bit of the scenery he soaked in, made him more and more confused.

For one, he was as naked as the cop was, save for a patch of wet mud on his chest and shoulders. Rather than in the smoldering remains of his house in Buenos Aires, they were in the middle of a grassy meadow by a river. Neither the river, the weeds around them, nor the trees in the distance looked anything like Buenos Aires, or any place in Argentina for that matter.

“You. You did this to us. Or your Cartel friends. Kidnapped us, dumped us in here." The cop turned from angry to icy.

“What? Why?" Miguel asked, confused. "What are you even talking about? Why would I kidnap a cop? Why would I kidnap myself? Does it look like a Cartel hideout to you? Besides, we exploded, remember?”

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The slap came so fast he didn't even have the time to see the hand move, and only registered the explosion of pain over his right cheek.

“Backtalk again and you’ll be shitting your own teeth. Now. What the fuck is going on?”

“I’m… I'm sorry, please don’t hit me. I really don’t know! All I remember is the fire, and now we are here.”

This time he almost dodged the slap because he was prepared. His vigilance was rewarded with a backhand that swiftly followed.

“Oh, I remember now!" the cop growled. "You fucking blew us up, you fat idiot! You must have started the fire yourself. What were you even thinking?! Please, don’t tell me. You wanted to get rid of the evidence. But aren’t you a fucking chemist? Did it not occur to you that an explosion like that, big vats of flammable shit in a confined space, would blow up the whole house and vaporize you as well??

“But we are alive… " Miguel whispered, covering his face.

“Huh. You might be right. Calm down, I don’t even want to hit you again, you are not worth it. It’s obvious you are just a cretin who managed to become a chemist and a meth cook by some incredible stroke of luck. You do not strike me as a mastermind who would escape a raid, ride an explosion, and kidnap a GEdOF officer. But someone must have done it, and they might be around. Now. Help me out of this hole. Im done being a fucking carrot.”

Miguel rose and almost gave the cop a hand, but some tiny mote of dignity struck an angry chord in him, and he suddenly jumped back, outside the man’s range.

“No. Fuck off." His voice was cracking, but his resolve returned. "Dig yourself up if you can. I'm out of here.”

“What? You ungrateful ass! I just saved you from choking on dirt!" the cop’s face dropped when Miguel started walking away. "Hey! You are still under arrest. And if you leave me here to die, this is both resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.”

Miguel turned angrily.

“First, this is bullshit. I'm not resisting or hurting you, you are just being stuck. I'm off to find help and will call someone to save you, once I'm safely away. And if you don’t like being stuck and helpless, and need my help, maybe you shouldn't have slapped me?”

The cop went berserk. He tore off the clumps of grass and wet soil, and started digging with his bare hands.

“You better run fatass! When I dig myself out, I'm going to tear your head off and shit up your neck hole!

“Good luck," Miguel said, and just stood there, watching.

“What? " the officer asked, confused.

“I said, good luck. I may be a stupid chemist. But I know shale when I see it." he said, waving his fingers. "See? I was buried with my palms stretched downwards, and my arms are covered in dry, hard clay and shale flakes. I bet my ass that everything below arms-deep in this soil is solid shale. I only managed to get pulled out because my fat arms are so much wider than my small hands. Geometry was on my side. It’s not on yours.”

“What does…”

“It means that you are essentially buried in rock, up to your navel. Unless you have a pickaxe stashed somewhere, or ordered a backhoe to get you out, you are not going anywhere. Have fun trying to dig yourself out, with just your bare hands and your macho attitude.”

“You're lying!" the cop yelled, panicking. He kept tearing out clumps of soil and roots, until his fingers hit a greasy, hard layer that looked like cracked concrete. "No. no no no no…”

“See?" said Miguel and turned around to leave.

“Stop! That’s an order!”

“I'm done taking orders from cops, Cartel sicarios, and other assholes. My lab is gone, my life is gone, I'm stuck naked in the woods in… motherfucking Russia or something? What is this place?! Anyway, have fun digging.”

He left the screaming cop and walked away.