Copyright to Jonathan O'Donnell - Protected under UK and International Copyright Laws, any reproduction, copying or publishing without the Authors express consent is strictly prohibited.
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Joanna opened
the cracked wood door to the shop; inside the small shop, tightly packed
shelves teetered on the edge of collapse in every direction. Shelves protruded
from every wall and were even over the doors and windows. Display stands and shelving
that had seen far better days cluttered the centre of the floor on the
threadbare carpet. It was an obstacle course of sorts just to make it to the
counter at the far end. The smell was unusual, old, something that was most
unfamiliar to Joanna growing up on the new world of Mars. As she approached the
counter, a black curtain hiding a door behind it was swept aside. The shop
assistant, with grey hair and warm brown eyes with wrinkles etched by experience,
smiled at her pleasingly.
“Yes young lady,
how may I assist you this fine New York day?” His accent was unusual, palms
were up and welcoming, his fingers patched with plasters.
Joanna stepped forward
to the glass counter. Joanna felt at ease with this man, he posed no threat,
well not to Joanna’s attuned senses. She swung her bag off her back and pulled
out a note. She laid it gently onto the glass counter. His eyes followed her
hand and they widened considerably as he realised a thousand credits sat on his
counter. Three months profit sat there tantalising him. She smiled and her eyes
met his and he smiled, he leaned forward placing one hand on the note.
“What would you
like to know?"
Joanna pulled a
piece of paper from her breast pocket and she placed it into his hand. He stepped
back and studied the piece of paper for a few seconds, turning it in each
direction assessing the image printed on it. Joanna noticed the thousand
credits and disappeared. He rotated it to ensure he had observed every detail
of the three dimensional image, satisfied he passed it back. His eyes met hers;
they had changed, no longer soft but wide and fixed. He was no longer welcoming
but seemed tense and he shifted from foot to foot. Joanna noticed beads of
sweat tickle down his temples.
“This is
dangerous young lady, the information you seek will lead to death. Mark my
words”. Joanna just stared at him; her
lack of response to his warning told the assistant what he needed to know. He
shrugged and went into the back room. Joanna stepped to the side, so she could
observe both doors and waited silently. Her hand in her rucksack, fingers wrapped
around the hilt of her laser, finger on the trigger, ready and on guard; on
Earth she could trust no one not even this apparently benign assistant. A few moments
later, he brushed the curtain aside. Looking into her eyes, he smiled once
again. Joanna looked down to see a plain folded sheet of paper on the desk.
He tapped it
with his finger; “good luck,” turned and disappeared once again behind the
curtain.
Joanna slipped
the paper silently into her pocket, released her grip on the laser, and left
the shop. Looking left, then right, Joanna crossed the road towards a small
garden where a building had once been, a bench beckoned to her. Joanna sat down
and pulled the paper from her pocket. Silently she read the scribbled writing
on the note.
An address,
nothing more, nothing less, she turned it over and still that was all. ‘Not much,’ she thought but it was at
least a starting point. On its own, it meant nothing, but it was a lead, another
step closer to finding James. Joanna took a lighter from her pocket and burned
the paper. She watched the paper turn black and the ashes blow away. She stood slinging
her rucksack onto her back; she saw a row of Taxi’s bobbing for fares and
headed towards them.
Her taxi stopped
near the entrance to the warehouse and Joanna opened the door and clambered out;
Joanna’s height proving a persistent hazard on this dwarf like world. She paid
the driver and closed the rear door. She heard the cabs engine roar to life
behind her and the wheels spin as it left. ‘Subtle
matey’ she though, she wondered if perhaps hiring transport would have been
easier and more discreet at moments like this. Joanna stood in the middle of a
concrete parking lot, devoid of transports except for one burnt out wreck,
rusting and glassless in the far corner. The road to the address had been pot holed,
puddled and uncomfortable to drive down, and it was clearly infrequently used.
She swung her
rucksack off her back and took out a scanner. It whined and whirred as she
turned it on, its sensors capable of picking up any heat source within five
hundred feet. She scanned her location in detail, sometimes swinging the
scanner back over some points two or three times. The warehouse was the key, the
only source of major heat signatures, if she ignored the rats and cats of
course. Switching the scanner mode to sound she held it to her chest to erase
her own breathing and heartbeat. Then again, she scanned the location. This
time the results were far different. Rats and cats abound, but heavyset men
with large lungs surrounded her, the scanner could tell how many and based on
the sounds how large the person was. She put the scanner back into her rucksack
and removing her combat belt, she put it on. She then removed the laser she had
fingered in the shop just thirty minutes before. Joanna holstered her laser,
hearing the comforting click of it locking into place.
Joanna paused,
closed her eyes, visualising the interior of the warehouse, the heat signatures
and where her possible opponents could be. When her eyes opened, all she could
see was the door to the warehouse. With a skip, she began to move, then jog and
into a sprint. Earth’s gravity pressed down on her, slowing her natural Martian
movement. Two metres from the door she leapt feet first and hit half way up. The
jarring impact sent a shockwave up her thighs and into her spine, her bones
were not as dense as a Terran, thinner and rubbery. The door broke in two and folded.
She landed on her side, rolled to her left into the shadows and up onto one
knee, her laser drawn. She listened silently, ears attuned to any movement.
Giving her eyes time to adjust to the interior. Joanna closed her eyes while
her hearing guarded her. Then as she opened them, the warehouse came nicely
into focus, dimly lit by large broken windows, a small room to the rear and a
collapsed floor above. She knew that in the darkness of the ceiling beams hid
potential assassins.
Joanna’s laser
swept the scene, her eyes looking for the slightest movement. Seeing none through
the gloom she closed her eyes again, she calmed her mind and waited. She knew
that somewhere in the rafters two men were waiting. They knew she was inside, but
they knew she was in the shadows. If they had heat sensors it would aid them
not, her suit blocked any heat source from her body. Silently Joanna waited.
Her breathing slowed, her muscles relaxed, the muzzle of her laser cold,
expectant. An assassin involuntarily twitched his leg, sending dust cascading
to the floor, it was a fatal error. His body hit the floor a moment later; his
head with a neat one-inch hole drilled through it. The second man panicked and
jumped down and ran towards a side door. He did not make it. Joanna opened her
eyes, stood and walked slowly and carefully towards the back room where the
final heat signature had been detected. From under the door light seeped across
the floor. Silently Joanna moved, stepping between rubbish and broken glass.
She paused at the door, taking a moment to check her six, the laser with its
barrel still warm, followed her eyes as she slowly turned around, scanning the
entire building once more, her eyes checking the rafters for any movement. Satisfied that the only assassins left were
the ones that waited for her outside, she turned to the door, her left hand
reached down and turned the handle, she pushed it open and stepped back behind
the wall. With one swift movement, she stepped inside, laser at the ready. She scanned
the room quickly, plain and white tiled. There was a stench in the air that
reacted badly with her stomach. Then her eyes froze, her face changed, her
mouth dropped open and her eyes opened wide. Her body suddenly felt weak, light
headed, she dropped to one knee. She closed her eyes as her hands began to
shake. Her laser fell from her hand and chinked as it bounced off the tiled
floor. Her mouth dry, she willed herself to stand, to move, every muscle fought
against her, her mind swirling, somehow Joanna made it across the floor.
Joanna reached
up and touched his lips. She expected no response. James’s eyes opened and he looked down, her
hand jerked back in shock, but then Joanna smiled up at him, her eyes were bloodshot
and full of tears, her cheeks flushed red, her mouth as dry as a Martian sand
storm.
James spoke with
what little control he had, "You came!" His voice weak, phlegm streaked with
blood flowed from the side of his mouth.
“I came!" She
replied softly, her voice trembling.
She ran her hand
over his bloodied cheeks. She looked behind him, seeing a rope, untying it she
lowered his shattered body slowly to the floor. As his stumps touched the tiles,
he let out a pathetic whimper. She knelt beside his broken body cradling his
head. Blood still pumped slowly from his thighs from where his legs would have
been. Rope roughly tied around his limbs failed to stem the flow. Joanna ran
her hand through his hair, her fingers paused when she found a soft spot, it
felt like a partly broken hard boiled egg; the blood warmed her fingers, and she
felt sick. His face was bruised and swollen; tears welled up in her eyes and
sprinted down her cheeks. She kissed his forehead.
“You asked me to
come, so of course I did my love."
She took a tissue
from her pack and gently wiped his face. He managed a smile. He forced himself
to speak.
"I am so sorry
to drag you into this, but I needed you. When it all went to pullacks, all I
could think of was you."
Closing his
eyes, Joanna waited, hoping, praying they would open again. They did.
“You must go
Joanna, they will be back soon!" He coughed, the pain causing his face to
twist. “I am finished, but you must do something for me and something for Mars
and for all of us”.
Joanna nodded;
she kissed him again. He smiled as her soft lips left his,
“Go to the
telephone booth, you will find something critically important. Get it to my
brother as soon as you can baby."
She nodded.
Stroking his face, “I will my love, I promise!"
He smiled. His
face became pale, beads of cold sweat streamed down his forehead. He spoke once
more, his eyes looking deeply into hers.
“I love you; I
want you to know that I always did love you. I never wanted to leave. I wish I
had another chance."
She held him
close to her, his face against her chest. His eyes opened wide, he looked up
into her green eyes. She looked back, his dark beautiful eyes looking into her
soul, oh how she had missed those eyes.
“It is ok, we
here together right now”. She said softly. His eyes focussed on her one last
time, and then silently the pupils opened wider. He was gone. Her cry of pain
echoed throughout the warehouse. Life had lost all meaning! Nothing mattered to
her anymore. She sat and held his shattered, wrecked body tightly against her,
not wanting to let him go ever again.
Joanna did not
know how long she sat crumpled on the floor with James pressed to her. It felt
like hours. The sunlight streaming through the windows of the warehouse had
traversed the room. Eventually Joanna forced herself to move, to let go.
Her fist clenched
forcing the blood from her hand; she looked into his eyes and gently kissed his
forehead, then carefully and slowly laid his body down. Her fingers closed his eyes;
she took a deep breath and began to think. Her knees were as weak as they had
been on Mars when she had first met him. Joanna roughly rubbed tears from her
eyes and walked stumbling from the room picking up her laser as she left. Her
body felt so weak and her mind spun relentlessly. She stopped and leant against
the wall of the room. Joanna taking a moment, just to refocus, to clear her
mind. However, like a cat her reflexes were sharp, her body a machine of
alertness. Even in this the worst moment of her life, her body was attune to
the danger.
‘What do you mean you lost her? How could
you lose her? Stupid funts, Idiots! Find her, track her.'
The suited men cut communications.
‘Well we have screwed up now,' the taller
one said shaking his head.
‘Let’s try that shop she went it, the system
says it is a front for crime information.' The smaller one replied.
‘Well, we better do something, or we will be
transferred to the moon chasing homeless urchins!'
Stepping through
the door back to the main warehouse floor, Joanna caught sight of a man edging
around the door to the warehouse, his hand held a laser. She reacted as her
training allowed. Pulling her laser from her belt, and firing instantly, the
man’s body fell forward against the frame and then spun onto the floor, a
smouldering gaping hole through his head. Alert and focussed she ran forward,
as a second man rushed through the door; he too was cut down, his cries of
agony cut short by a second deadly beam through his right eye. Joanna again moved
quickly, reaching the door of the warehouse. She paused, reloaded her laser.
She took two smoke bombs from her belt and tossed them through the door. Joanna
counted to three and then moved.
Diving through
the door into the smoke, she rolled, stopped and fired, then rolled again,
firing left and right. Her senses heard a hover cars engine, she moved towards
the sound, zig zagging all the way. She hoped her assailants were not using sound
scanners. Through the gloom, her eyes
fixed quickly on the only visible threat! The hover car, engine humming, the
door open and a thickset driver sat at the controls. He froze as his eyes fixed
on Joanna. His scanner slipped from his fingers as he slowly raised his hands.
His eyes transfixed on the barrel of Joanna’s Laser.
Joanna walked towards
the hover car, pausing just few feet away. With a wave of her barrel, she
beckoned him out of the car. Dutifully and slowly, the thickset man slowly
climbed out. His eight-foot frame towering over Joanna, ‘Martian’ she though. He looked down at her, his hands held high
either side of his head, a laser strapped to his belt. Joanna smiled at him, he
smiled back, then his face twisted and contorted as he fell against the car and
thumped onto the concrete. His left knee sporting a new neat pinpoint hole.
Joanna knelt next to him and placed the laser under his nose. She was angry, in
touch with her violent dark side.
“Who are you? What
are you doing on Earth?" Her voice trembled with anger as she struggled to
control the adrenaline pumping through her.
His face
grimaced, “None of your funting business,” he cried, “stupid bitch! You are
just the walking dead and you don’t even know it!"
That was the
last thing he said to Joanna or anyone ever again.
As his still
steaming brains dripped off the bodywork of the hover car Joanna climbed into her
newly acquired ride. She looked back just once at the warehouse before she
drove off, leaving smoking, charred bodies still twitching behind her.
Joanna flew
directly to the communication booth from which James had called her for help;
she paid little respect to Earth’s hover car laws. Determined and focussed on
one thing only, completing James’s last request. She landed next to the
communication booth, there was no time to waste, and whatever James had been
working on, it was big, and it was essential to the futures of both Earth and
Mars.
‘The warehouse
had been a trap, to lure her or someone else.' She was in no doubt about
that. Her training’ experience and skill had kept her alive. ‘Nevertheless, if they could get to James,
they were more than capable of getting her too!' She jumped from the car
leaving the engine running and the door open.
‘If they were after what James had, I need
to act quickly.' She thought, she knew her advantage was small, ‘minutes or seconds. They would trace the stolen
hover car, they would find her and then they would not make the same mistake of
underestimating her a second time. Every single second counts now, no
hesitation, and no time to feel’.
Drawing her
laser she yanked the door of the booth open, inside a short man squealed with
shock, Joanna grabbed his shoulder, yanking him clear of the booth and sending
him tumbling across the pavement. Joanna’s eyes scanned the booth.
‘Where is it James? Where would you hide
it?'
Her eyes looked
up at the light above her, ‘That’s it.'
Her fist punched
through the glass and it shattered, showering her in small beads of glass. A
small silver cylinder landed on the floor at her feet, she grabbed it with her
bleeding hand. She looked at it, storage
unit, and secret service issue. She opened it and found what she had expected,
a micro communication disk. Joanna holstered her laser and placed her thumb on
the back of the disc and her little finger on the front. The disc bleeped three
times; satisfied she pocketed the disc and jumped back into the humming hover
car. She could already hear sirens in the distance. ‘No time, no time! Move, move!' She barked at herself.
Abandoning the
hover car a block from the booth in a back road. Joanna cut through Central
Park. She kept to the busy paths full of tourists, hoping she would blend in,
her laser now packed in her rucksack and not readily accessible. However, Joanna
knew that Martians rarely blended in on earth, their towering height always
drew stares and finger pointing from children. Joanna followed the winding
paths, turning corners and dodged around children playing. Occasionally she
left the paths to go through some bushes. She paused behind large copse of trees,
checking her ‘three’, ‘six’ and ‘nine’ constantly. Out of breath Joanna took a
break in a thicket of bushes, she checked her map. ‘If she could get across the park, into a cab, then a ‘Magna-train’ to
Texas, she might be able to get off world on a freighter.'
Joanna took a
deep breath of the thick Earth atmosphere and jogged up a grassy hill. As her
eyes looked over the hill, she suddenly skidded to a halt.
A man was
walking up the hill towards her, the muzzle of his laser pointed directly at
her. Joanna’s mind worked quickly assessing the situation. She looked to her
right, another man stepped forward and then another to her left. Behind her,
she could hear more heavy steps, many more were approaching. She counted seven
in all. Joanna’s mind raced, back to her training days at the academy. She was
desperately trying to work out a successful kill formula for seven assailants,
on a grassy hill, with a laser packed in a rucksack. Her mind could not find
one, each scenario ended with them standing over her lifeless body. The problem
was her laser, buried deep in her rucksack, and it was that one thing that
prevented any successful outcome. The man stood just ten feet from her, short,
but smartly dressed.
“The disc please?" The man seemed most amused; his smirk irritated her, his hand held out.
Joanna reached
slowly into her pocket, and tossed the disc onto the grass in front of him.
He reached down
to pick it up, Joanna saw her chance, the muzzle momentarily moved from her to
the ground.
This was it, her
chance; she swept the rucksack from her back and reached into it to grab her
laser. He reacted fast, actually much faster than she had expected. He lifted
his laser and fired. Luckily he missed, his shot passed over a crouching
Joanna. She raised her laser and pulled the trigger but something was wrong. She
could feel herself firing, but the visuals did not match. She watched as her
laser spun in the air, her fingers still pressing the trigger. The laser still
firing, scorching the ground in strange patterns in front of her. The pain
registered up her arm a moment later. Her arm severed, just below where her protective
body suit ended just above the elbow. Joanna had not time to let out a cry of
pain, as the twitching fingers of her severed hand lay on the grass and blood
pumped from her arm. A second burst of laser fire hit her in her back, the
intense heat scored through her suit, painful but not deadly. Joanna her senses
still sharp, ducked and rolled forward, grabbing her laser with her remaining
good hand and sweeping an arc of fire around her. She managed to hit two of
them, cutting them down; their heads bounced down the grassy hill as their
bodies crumpled to the ground. Another laser blast grazed her head, removing
some skin on the left side of her face, her ear had been vaporised. Pain
scythed through her like nothing she had ever known. She lifted her laser again
and cut down one more. Nevertheless, it was hopeless, Joanna knew it, and two final
beams cut at her. One removed her laser and the fingers that held it, the other
sliced across her stomach. The suit protected her from most of the intense heat
but the pain from her arms and head combined was too much and she crumpled
forward. Blood poured from her wounds.
'Sir we have found her, she has been spotted
heading across Central Park. What do you want us to do?' The short man looked
at his taller colleague.
'Get your funting asses over there and help
her you dolts!'The response was loud enough to crackle the speaker. Without hesitation,
they lifted off in their hover car. They were a minute away.
As Joanna lay on
the ground, the grass and mud turning red with her blood her remaining ear
could feel the approaching boots. She felt a boot in her stomach; the man
flipped her onto her back. She looked up into his eyes, they were cold eyes.
‘This is it!’ she thought.
She met his
stare with her own, her eyes strong and unflinching her hatred powerful even in
her final moments. The man with the boot moved away and another took his place.
He knelt down beside her,
“Morning!" his
smile was repulsive, his teeth dirty and uneven. His face had a waxy shiny
texture. Her dislike was instantaneous.
He tapped the
muzzle of his laser on Joanna’s missing ear. “Nasty that!" he said grinning.
Joanna heard the others laughing as the pain seared from the muzzle’s touch.
“Now lass, I
will only ask you this once. Did you copy that disc?"
Joanna shook her
head; her eyes stared back into his. Words could not describe the look, but it
would have made an angel shiver with fear.
“Good girl." he
stood up, fiddling with his laser.
“You can join James
now!" He aimed and fired.
Sweat poured
down his brow as he ran with the two suited men through the park. As he cleared
a thicket, the grassy hill came into view. He had to leap over a dismembered head.
He paused, drawing his laser. The tall and short suits also drew their lasers.
Slowly the three of them made their way up the shallow hill. Then he saw Joanna’s
body.
“Damn!" He broke
into a sprint and fell to his knees beside her crumpled shattered body. Her
injuries were horrific.
“Secure the site
and get an Ambulance. Pronto!” he barked at his men.
He brushed the
hair from Joanna’s face. Using his sleeve he wiped the blood from her cheeks.
His heart sank.
“I am so sorry Jo;
I failed you and James." he said
He leaned
forward to pick up her laser. He stopped, he looked at her again. He leaned in
closer, his ear brushing her lips.
“Christ
almighty!"
With a renewed
urgency, he made the most important call of Joanna’s life.
...........................
Denny climbed into his hover car on
the edge of the park. He took out the disc and placed it into the monitor. He
selected ‘Load’.
The screen flickered, ‘Disc Empty’,
displayed on the screen.
“That lying bitch!” he barked.
He pulled the door shut and made a
scrambled emergency call. Everything had become very complicated and now all
their plans had to change, and fast.
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