Andy88
Junior Scribe
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Post by Andy88 on Mar 30, 2012 21:47:36 GMT -5
Excerpt: if it's too long to read a brief synopsis will be in the following post.
Prologue
The sun glowed gently on a peaceful summer estate as another new day began. The silence of the surrounding country grounds was only broken by the boisterous sound of a young girl frolicking and laughing through the estate grounds near the body of water. The girl was trailed by her far less energetic attendant. The scene was abrubtly interrupted by the shadow of a tall man with elvishly long ears with a young boy holding his one hand while a woman that must have been his wife flanked him on the other side.
"Sir are you here to see the garden renovations?" the attendant uttered as she looked at the man in a meek demeanor, to which the man mechanically nodded. They were about to proceed when the girl giddily ran up and tugged on the man's jacket.
"Look what I can do daddy!" she said excitedly. She then proceeded to take a step away from her father and perform an incredulous triple cartwheel flip, her father seemed to tacitly approve with a slight grin. The boy, by now annoyed by his sister's stunts suddenly jumped forward.
"I have something to show too," he declared, to which the man's grin turned into a slight frown. The boy lunged out to try his own acrobatics, only to slip and fall mid stride. This repeated for a few times before his mother picked him up and held his hand.
“Ugh, I messed up,” the boy uttered angrily.
“No no, you were doing just fine. You’re sister made you fall over,” the woman reassured the boy while glaring at the girl, who skipped off trying not to make eye contact with the woman.
“Enough, Margaret let’s go...” the man said to his wife as he quietly patted the girl’s shoulder.
“Honestly dear why do you even keep that menace of a child around? She’s done nothing but harass and bully our child for the past, who knows how many years,” Margaret whispered to her husband.
“What do you mean why? No matter how you spin it she is still my daughter, and you should treat her as yours too,” he responded irritably, giving his wife a stern look of disapproval.
“All I’m saying is that you’ve been awfully distant from your own son, who is your primary beneficiary might I remind you,” Margaret continued almost obliviously to her husband’s objections. “Besides, who knows just how much of that... woman’s less savory traits would make their way into that girl when she’s older...”
“Enough! I thought we agreed not to discuss this, we’re done discussing this,” the man grunted out strongly with a scowl on his face, continuing to walk on without bothering to listen anymore.
“Hey Silly Willy, would you mind coming over for a second?” The little girl said peering over to see her brother aimlessly wander around the grounds of the estate.
“No, just get away from me!” the boy spat before walking away. The girl gave a brief scowl before seeing her father approach alone.
“Daddy, Willy won’t play with me. Don’t you think as siblings we should be learning how to get along and play better?” she said with the cutest expression her 5 year old face could make.
“Of course, William go play with your sister,” he replied upon seeing her face.
“But Dad...” the boy protested.
“Go play with your sister, it will be good for you,” his father asserted, prodding him out to the field.
“Alright you win, what do you want?” the boy muttered to his sister.
“I’m hurt Silly, can’t I ever just want to play with my little brother without falling victim to all this suspicion?” the girl replied in an almost authentic voice.
“Fine, what do you want to do?” he said resignedly.
“Let’s play a little dart throwing game,” she said, running off towards the orchards with her brother in tow. She placed him up against a tree and placed an apple on his head.
“Now remember, hold still,” she commanded. “Think fast!” she burst out as a knife flew out of her hand, impaling the apple. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely as she came up to her perturbed brother to take back her blade. “I seem to have hit a few inches too high,” she whispered into William’s ear.
“Get away from me you crazy freak!” he yelled as he stomped away from the scene.
“Wait!” the girl interjected suddenly.
“What?!” he angrily yelled, only to be shoved into the nearby fountain. “Ugh, what was that for?” he inquired irritably.
“Oh sorry, I thought I saw a horrifying looking monster before I realized it was just you,” she smirked before skipping away.
The office room inside the sprawling estate was converted into a soundproof conference room, filled with a handful of middle aged men in military uniforms and the estate’s long eared owner.
“General Ryan, your report?” the long eared man began.
“Thank you Colonel. Our troops have successfully landed on the desert shores and...” the general began.
“No no no, I already know all of this. I was referring to the situation back home, if you know what I mean,” the man interrupted.
“Of course. The President has shown unwillingness to expand our military presence into the enemy’s homes and sanctuaries in spite of repeated insistence by the Joint Chiefs. We have little confidence in his ability to change his mind,” the general explained.
“Hmm, I see. It appears the President and his party is not going to have a pretty election cycle next year am I right?” the man inquired of his servants.
“Indeed, the last thing this nation needs is the disgrace of a weak and un-agreeable President. Get the news media on the phone,” he began while pulling up a folder filled with documents. “We have a smear campaign to run,” he finished with a sinister grin.
Chapter 1
A quiet yet deliberate aura filled the air of the sprawling office floor as file and paper slid back and forth between cubicle stations in an almost pointless shamble. In the cubicle closest to the window, a tall, slender woman, no older than her mid thirties at most, was sitting in quite the lazy position, resting her elbows on her desk and looking miserably at the miserably large mountain of reports she had left to write. She had barely made up her resolve to not play another game of solitaire until at least one report was filed when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Laura, my office, as soon as you can,” a stout, bald man with glasses muttered to her.
“Yes, director,” she intoned in a sharp, slightly nervous slur. The blood in her face rapidly drained from the startling arrival of her boss, just in time for her to close her solitaire tab Laura slowly got up and made her way to the office in a slow march.
Incomprehensible chaos was the only words to describe the scene as dozens of speechwriters and security agents frantically labored to prepare themselves for the speech to start momentarily. Yet President Chamberlain himself, a large, built man, had an inexplicable aura of calmness and serenity in him that seemed to make sense of even the least intelligible tangles of the scene.
“No, something doesn’t sound quite right about that, reword it to make it sound more... direct,” the President said after reading and pointing a finger to a line on a draft of his speech, to which the writer promptly went back to work correcting the errors. Without missing a beat, Chamberlain took a quick look at his watch before putting on his suit and perfunctorily snatching up the final draft of his speech.
“Well, we’re running low on time, I guess that will have to do,” the president said as he set it down. A built young man that must have been his bodyguard flanked him as he left the room and made his way down the hall towards the podium.
“All corridors clear?” he uttered into his earpiece, to which a fuzzy yet clear voice responded, “President is clear for entrance.” “God speed Mr President,” he said to Chamberlain as he got up to enter public view.
“Thank you Agent Daniels,” he said as he made his way out onto the stage, he beamed and let out his imposing yet comforting smile, giving a hearty wave to the crowd while giving a wide, natural smile. Not missing a beat, the president comfortably took his position on the podium.
There was a soft knock on the door to the FBI Director’s office, to which he replied
“Come in Agent Mason.” Laura, at 6’3”, stood quite awkwardly taller than her much shorter boss.
“You asked to see me sir?” she asked in a flat, professional tone.
“Ah, sit down,” he said motioning for her to sit.
“Well, I hope you’re not too comfortable in your office space,” he began, almost immediately after which the woman’s veiled expression pealed back to reveal her flickering emotional turmoil.
“Wait... sir I know that maybe I haven’t had the best of days but... please let me prove that I can be an asset to this agency...” she hurriedly said in a panic.
“I’ve seen enough... pack your things and get them into office down the hall, I need to fill that office sooner or later and your stuff isn’t going to move itself,” he said in a flat, seemingly uncaring tone. Laura was flabbergasted. Perhaps the five to ten minutes an hour she spent working had paid off.
"Thank you, thank you very much Director!" she exhaled forcefully as she shook his hand.
"Well hurry up and get that office filled, last thing we need is to he caught unprepared for something when our Special Agent in Charge seat is vacant," the assistant director responded in his mechanical tone.
“But my goal, our goal remains unchanged. We have much to do and far to go, but with your cooperation, I know that we can make it, God bless America!” the speakers in the entire hall boomed as the president concluded his speech. President Chamberlain gave one final wave to the crowd amid thunderous applause as he walked off the stage, flanked by his chief bodyguard.
“That was a mighty fine speech sir,” he said softly to the president as they were walking back down the hallway. As the group came back into the lounge to rest there was the sight of one of the aides from earlier slouched over a laptop.
“Hey! Wake up!” the chief bodyguard said in a stern voice. The president simply chuckled before going near him.
“He’s tired, we all are. I’d be sleeping too if I didn’t need to give a speech,” he said as he shook the aide to wake him, only to have his apparently lifeless corpse skid and thud on the floor. The mere sight of death immediately triggered the bodyguard’s reflexes, ducking the president down while he and all the other agents in the room drew their guns and surveyed the room. One of the men came down to put a hand to the body’s throat.
“He’s dead,” he said. The president, along with everyone else in the room, was quickly evacuated from the room to a barricaded safe-room as the scene filled with armed police and Secret Service agents.
“What?!” Chamberlain exhaled in an incredulous daze. Refusing the Secret Service’s insistence that he evacuate in case an intruder was still near, the President instead came down to try and see who he was.
“Sir, it’s not safe in here, we need to evacuate you,” urgently prodded Daniels. Under his bodyguard’s strong proddings, the president eventually relented and left for a safer location.
Laura had barely finished carting all of her belongings into her new office when the phone rang. Picking up the phone, an anxious voice greeted her on the other end. It only took mere minutes, but by the time she had replaced the phone on the desk, Laura looked noticeably drained.
“I really should have been careful in wishing for ‘no dull moments’,” she sighed to herself as she put a hand to her waist to make sure her weapon was secure as she rushed out the door.
“Pack your things, we got business to take care of,” she blared out to the agents both in the lower floor and the lounge. The agents had barely had time to register what Laura had said before she was already out the door getting the cars ready, this was her first day as agent in charge and she had the alacrity to show it.
Moving quickly onto a convoluted mess of cops and coroners milling around with about as much organization as a cloud, Laura quickly took charge of the scene and systematically had the first responding cops and FBI agents bag, or process in the event that the evidence wasn’t portable, every scrap of tangible material in the room.
The posh penthouse was furnished and luxurious to the point of nausea. An irreversibly haughty looking young woman, no older than 20 at most, was reclining on a soft chair while wearing an almost eye dizzying multi-colored silk robe with more servants attending to her every want than a princess. A man in a suit and earpiece, most likely a bodyguard, stepped in to address the young mistress.
“Ma’am, the orders have been executed and we are waiting further command,” he said.
“Pardon me for being ever so slightly rude, but did I ever tell you that you were allowed to come in? And furthermore do I look like a technologically backwards yokel who can’t see the news? I must conclude that you simply must have x-ray vision based on your confidence that I was not, say disrobed at this moment because you know just how understandably upset not only I but my father would be am I wrong?!” she hissed at him, standing up and interrupting her handmaiden’s intricate nail painting work.
“I... apologize mistress Natalie, I only wanted to let you know...” he stuttered, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead in a spontaneous torrent.
“Sorry doesn’t ruin the ornate nails that I’ll have to start all over again. The next time you feel the primal urge to barge straight into my room I suggest at least a courtesy knock so I don’t kill you,” Natalie scowled in his face as she effortlessly picked the muscular man up by the neck and tossed him back like a ragdoll, he then quickly scurried away like a frightened puppy. She then sat back down in her chair next to her fear paralyzed servants.
“Well? These nails aren’t doing themselves,” she intoned impatiently, to which the servants immediately jumped back to their tasks. After a meticulous treatment Natalie was dressed into an elegant yet surprisingly simple scarlet tinted outfit, mostly for maintaining her mobility and freedom of movement. Without even bothering to wait for her servant entourage she briskly made her way down to the curb where her limo waited for her. Natalie slipped into the backseat and the driver departed for her destination, all without a word spoken.
Chapter 2
By now the initial sweep was over and Laura found herself back at the field office trifling through the victim’s computer for any possible leads. As the lead technician was shuffling through the computer file after file, her pace noticeably jerked down upon seeing another line of code, almost as if she were mere inches from stepping on a computerized landmine.
“What’s the matter?” Laura asked suddenly leaning in closer.
“It’s locked...” the technician replied. She sounded unready to proceed, clearly knowing more than what she had said.
“Well? Hack it. I’m pretty sure dead men don’t give a damn about their privacy when we’re trying to find who killed them,” Laura intoned in a semi-impatient voice.
"Thing is... I think there's a virus in here. And this is the president's aide we're talking about, I'm not sure we're..." she started.
"Dammit I told you to hack the damn thing, no more excuses," she blurted out, her patience having run dry. The technician tentatively agreed and began typing rapidly as he began to peal back the layers of security on the files. As the files finally unlocked the entire screen seized up and spasmed out a multitude of barely intelligible text and symbols.
"Think you can translate that for all of us non-computer geeks?" Laura intoned annoyed.
"Um... sorry this isn't just computer talk, this is White House tailored jargon code, you're guess is as good as good aa mine," the technician replied in a voice of genuine confusion. Laura scowled.
"Well try to figure something out, I’m going down to see if the body’s got any leads," she said exasperated.
Trying to get his thoughts away from the day’s ghastly turn of events, the President had arranged for a press conference to try to alleviate any concerns or panics that might arise from such an incident.
“That sounds about right. Reassuring yet confident at the same time,” conferred President Chamberlain to one of his speechwriters as he was preparing for a press conference. The aide seemed noticeably fatigued after and sat back from her seat. “It’s been a long day, go home and get some rest, I’ll finish the rest myself,” he sympathized to his exhausted aide.
“Oh don’t worry about me sir, I’m not going to be a liabili...” she began as she attempted to get
up, but in a complete failure of self will her body buckled and fell towards the floor, forcing Chamberlain to lunge and catch her, propping her back up momentarily to try and revive her.
“Carrie?! Snap out of it,” he pleaded before putting his hand to her neck and, to his distress, could feel no pulse. It took little time for the room to be flooded in yet more emergency responders and security personnel.
Landing in his own chair with an audible thud, the President let out a frustrated scowl as he slammed his fist on his desk.
“Dammit how the hell does this happen?!” he yelled out directing it at no one in particular, though it was his chief bodyguard Marshal Daniels that usually took the brunt of the President’s frustrations.
“Sir, I think considering all the security breaches we’ve been having we should raise the security awareness level at the White House immediately...” he began.
“I’m not the one who’s dying! The real item of business we need to get to is find out who the hell is killing my people!” Chamberlain cut him off angrily. “What kind of a leader can’t even keep the ones closest to him safe,” he muttered dejectedly to himself.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this sir, the FBI’s already going through evidence as fast as they can,” reassured Marshal in a calm, low voice.
“And with the loyalty of the necessary politically powerful men throughout the government, our plans should leave us in full control of the government within the week,” uttered a proud sounding Natalie to a disgruntled looking middle age man at his lavishly decorated office.
“Why do you waste my time with this prattle? I already knew this two weeks ago, just tell me what you want already,” he glowered impatiently. Natalie bit her lip slightly and continued on.
“I was just... trying to be informative about the stage of our plan,” she said slightly hurt.
“Oh for crying out loud I already have servants to tell me about this stuff so just get to the point, you’re wasting your time as well you know,” he droned un-enthused. Natalie then knelt down in front of the man and took a deep breath to calm her nerves.
“Father... I have been thinking for a long time. I was simply wondering, if perhaps I could accompany you to Washington as an advisor and guard...” she said meekly. The man looked quizzically at Natalie for a second.
“Really? I didn’t think you would be the type to want to follow me through all of those dreadfully boring meetings. Tell me, is this because I am taking William with me?” he inquired.
“Why... father you know I’m not the jealous type, I just want to learn more about your job so that I can do mine better," she said.
"Natalie, I know that you want to be in on everything, but I also need you in the city to make sure nothing goes wrong. Your brother is just a suitable stationary guard but you... you’re the brains and delicate hands. I am entrusting you with a very important task by having you return back to the field to make sure nothing goes wrong. Do we have an understanding?” her father answered with seemingly genuine sincerity.
“I... do. I suppose it is fitting, being the competent and smart one,” she conceded, eventually standing back up and leaving after politely giving a stiff goodbye.
In a blaring spectacle of sirens, a mini motorcade of police and FBI barreled down the streets when the sound of a violent crash punctured the air. At first, Laura assumed some careless driver had driven into a pole or car, it wouldn't have been the first time. But a second, more clarified explosion sent a second car flying off the road, her worst nightmares suddenly revisited her: they were under attack. Laura tumbled out of her car as the blast-wave from the explosions slammed her car into a nearby building, and not a moment too soon, for she had barely rolled a few hundred feet away when her own car burst into flames. The disoriented agents that managed to stay alive in the inferno rolled towards cover, but not before a hail of bullets flooded the ground around them, killing or maiming most of them. The source of the bullets soon became apparent as a squad of masked gunmen descended upon the scene. In tandem with the FBI's return fire, the hailstorm of bullets and shrapnel converted downtown Manhattan into a living inferno of hellish proportions. A few of the agents had made it to Laura's position behind the walls of the nearest building, though with so many losses and a total lack of preparation the situation certainly could have been better.
“I count four to five gunmen, two from the North, three from the East,” said a tall, lanky agent rolling behind cover next to Laura.
"Well tell me something I don't know Nick. I’m not a blind idiot," she blew out in a mix of fear and irritation. The two returned fire at their assailants, even as both of them knew that chances of holding out against automatic rifle fire with handguns was an impossibility.
"Just tell me the ETA on backup," she yelled out, slowly nudging Nick to inch back as far back as possible from the scene without compromising cover.
"Metro Police is 10 minutes out, FBI is 15," he hissed. The gunmen, intent on killing everything in sight, and without a large crowd to navigate thanks to the Secret Service sweeps from earlier, inched closer to the two beleaguered agents' positions. Intent on at least taking some adversaries out upon being cornered, Laura burst out and shot an unfortunate enemy clean in the forehead and another, but only in the shoulder.
"Cover me, reinforcements don't seem to be particularly useful at the moment," she yelled to Nick. She pulled out a throwing knife from her waist and impaled it on the closest assailant and slipped under the corpse of her earlier corpse, using it as a shield to shoot and kill two more enemies and salvaging a grenade from the meatshield and creating a thick plume of dust and smoke with it. Slipping an AK 47 from its former owner's shoulder, Laura rolled through the smoke while the gunment were still in a daze and in a second hailstorm of pure metallic fire sent the remaining 4 gunment violently to the ground. Nick, in an incredulous daze, came out from the rubble and after a brief sweep, holstered his weapon.
"Laura you scare me sometimes," he said in a trance. Nick had barely said this when a stimuli of some sort prompted him to tackle Laura to the ground just as she was trying to stand up, sending her head a lifesaving inch below an incoming sniper bullet. Laura reflexively rolled herself and Nick behind the nearest cover before peering up at her would be assassin, finger on her rifle’s trigger. She could only glimpse a lithe figure with ashen black hair on a nearby rooftop flee from the scene as its shot chance diminished. No sooner had she spotted the fleeing assassin when the sound of sirens and speeding cars, descended upon them as Metro Police cars swarmed the embattled city block. Knowing the drill, both agents tossed aside their weapons and pulled out their badges over their heads, signifying their innocence. With dozens of armored policemen securing the scene, the worst of the day seemed to be over... for now.
“Sir, we’ve already had two staff deaths and a plethora of panic inducing press to go with it, I strongly recommend that you return to Washington both for safety and publicity’s sake,” uttered agent Daniels to his boss.
“For the last time, I have more events scheduled for today and by God I won’t let an errant murderer and terrorist get between me and my duties, am I clear?” the President boomed in a quiet yet unquestionably authoritative voice. “If anything this should be a wake up call for us to double our efforts to find and kill the damned thug behind this catastrophe and put an end to this, speaking of which, where the hell is the FBI? I was expecting them to show up a little faster...” he muttered frantically. Just as the President was about to put the matter aside for the moment to resume business, a frantic knock came upon the door, prompting agent Daniels to reach for his waist before suppressing his reflexes and inspect the knocker, just an out of breath Secret Service agent, with the spooked expression of a shell shocked soldier. Daniels quickly allowed him in to meet the President.
"Mister President, there's...more fatalities," he uttered.
"Good God, which office room is it this time?" Chamberlain replied with more exasperation than surprise.
"Uh actually this time it was about 15 blocks Southwest of us...” he interjected.
Natalie calmly took a deep breath in as she assessed her position and circumstances. No sooner had she taken a stable stance than did the first of many armed and armored combatants lunged at her in a flurry of carefully aimed attacks. In an even quicker flurry of counters, Natalie quickly parried and dodged every single attack before slipping straight through the ranks of her enemies and rendering all of them immobile and sprawling on the ground in seconds.
“Hmm, almost solid. Just a hairline weakness,” an elderly looking Oriental man observing noted, prompting Natalie to release an exasperated sigh.
“Then I’m not finished practicing. Get up or send someone else in, I’m far from finished,” she snarled as the practice mat was cleaned up for another round.
“She’s going to kill herself from exhaustion one of these days I swear,” the old man sighed.
More thrashing and beating continued in the background as an ever impatient Natalie continued violently plowing through her routine when a servant holding her phone approached the ring.
“Excuse me ma’am, there’s a message waiting for you,” he hollered to her.
“Can’t you see I’m a little busy?” Natalie replied as he sent an unfortunate training partner several feet across the mat careening into a wall.
“It’s kind of important... It has to do with the situation downtown,” he elaborated.
“Ugh, give me that,” she said holding one hand out for the phone while holding the other to signal a time out. The message on her phone instilled an immediate air of urgency in the young woman as she immediately gathered her possessions and began moving towards the door.
“Training’s over... for now,” she uttered, much to the apparent relief of her embattled combatants, who were all seen hobbling away from the scene.
Chapter 3
"What do you mean it was empty?! I thought you had just said... ugh never mind I'll call you back," Laura spat rather irritably into her phone before shutting off the call.
"Not so loud, you might hurt yourself," said a concerned looking doctor as he continued prodding his trinkets all over her body the way doctors were programmed to do.
"For the last time, I'm perfectly fine. Now how much longer is this inspection going to take?" Laura muttered softly. Having already spent the last hour or so in the hospital, her patience with the doctor was waning dangerously thin.
"Car accident victims usually tell me that before I find some massive bruise of misaligned bone somewhere. You just fought a mini-Iraq right there, now hold still," the doctor firmly replied.
"You have no idea..." she muttered soft just enough for herself to barely hear.
After a few more of what felt like hours, Laura was finally permitted to stand up and leave the hospital, though her doctor 'strongly' advised her to avoid strenuous physical activity for a good 48 hours just to be safe, not that she gave a damn. In the lobby stood Nick, the only other surviving FBI agent from the scene, and the reason Laura arrived in the hospital on her feet instead of in a body bag.
“Thanks for the help, I guess I owe you one,” she muttered almost inaudibly to him while leaning back next to him.
“Well I couldn’t just let you die then could I?” he replied with a slight grin on his face. Laura let out a soft sigh as she leaned back, if only for a few minutes, to rest before reporting back to FBI. She had barely leaned back into relaxation when the doors of the hospital burst open, behind a woman in her mid to late twenties frantically running in to the hospital floor where the two agents were resting, immediately descending upon Nick.
“Oh my God, Nicky are you okay? I saw the news and was worried sick about you,” she blabbered rapidly while hanging onto him like a scared child.
“I’m fine Alice, don’t worry,” Nick reassured her as he wrapped his own arm around her. Laura, suddenly caught off guard from the outburst, calmly cleared her throat and leaned away to check her phone for any news on her phone.
“I’ll let you two sort things out while I call FBI back, they’re gonna want an explanation,” she muttered as she shyly slid away.
"Well I got some good news and bad news. Good news is we're still alive. Bad news is our investigation's headed south, we couldn't find squat from the autopsy on either the first or second..." Laura began before being abruptly cut off
"Wait... did you say second body?" he said.
"Well what did you think we were speeding down the road for, donuts?" she replied. "By the way I don't think we've met, I'm Laura," she interjected as she extended a hand to Alice. The two women awkwardly shook hands.
"I’m the new guy remember? I’m not privileged with a massive social circle at the office or a very sociable boss," quipped Nick to break the awkward silence.
"Well if you’d stop being so anti-social maybe I’d be more amiable," Laura joked. She had just said this when a tall lanky teenage boy with gold blonde hair stampeded in through the front door of the hospital with a perturbed expression.
"Aunt Laura?! What happened?" he exclaimed as he briskly walked to Laura.
"Nothing Rick, I'm fine. What are you doing here? I thought you were busy at your fight club thing,"she inquired of her nephew.
“Well all I got was a phone call telling me my aunt was in the hospital after a fire fight and the rest was history. And it’s not just some ‘fight club thing,’ it’s mixed martial arts. If I’m going to be the best of the best, I might as well get started now.
“Whoa there kiddo, let’s not worry about any best of anythings and pace ourselves,” Laura quipped. The two conversed less like a guardian to a dependant and more like two friends, most likely due to their mere 9 year age difference. The two laughed and let their troubles melt away when a phone call called Laura back to the grim drudgery's of reality.
“Excuse me, I gotta take this,” she muttered as she shuffled out to take the call.
“So... how have you been?” Nick asked the boy awkwardly.
“Pretty good, think I can make it to the final round this season,” Rick replied.
“Of what?” Nick asked.
“Mixed Martial Arts club,” Rick replied nonchalantly. The two exchanged nods shortly before a prolonged awkward silence.
“Laura, I think I got something, that chip I took out of the body just had some sort of magnetizing counter frequency obstructing...” rambled Jerry over the phone.
“Whoa whoa, hold on. English please, I don’t speak nerd,” Laura tempered.
“Okay, so that blank screen you saw before you left, turns out it just had a magnetic encrypting bar that flattens out the data until you pound a counter-charge into it long enough. Point being I got something out of the chip, a date, time, and an address to be exact. Ah screw it, I’m sending all the data scrap to your phone right now,” he continued excitedly.
“Jerry, I like you I really do but could you please not sound so nerdy all the time?” Laura uttered in a friendly, teasing voice.
“Can’t help it, you’re just gonna have to deal with it. Anyways, good luck,” Jerry jabbed back as he hung up. Laura now looked at her phone, which had received a new file filled with page after page of seemingly random dates and addresses.
“What the hell?” she whispered under her breath as she walked back into the waiting room where her acquaintances were loitering. On the screen was a date, today’s date, and a clock symbol that indicated a time approximately 10 minutes from that moment. Not sure what to make of the information she scrolled past to see what else the terribly organized file had on it. When she hit the address on the second page, her heart sank ten notches: it was the location of the President’s conference with local business leaders, which was set to begin at any minute. “Get your stuff together, we need to go, now!” she exploded at Nick in a frenzy. She barely had enough time to give her son a brief kiss on the forehead before zipping out the door, her subordinate chasing after her.
“Whoa, slow down! What’s the big rush?” Nick lisped out in exasperation.
“Take a look at this, what do you see?” Laura responded as she handed Nick her phone.
“The date and time for the President’s economic summit?” Nick asked in confusion. “But what has that got to do with us?” he added.
“It was found on our first murder victim from the White House staff, and I sure as hell don’t plan on sitting back to find out what twisted little scheme is going on out there,” she blurted out in a volley. “Get in,” she yelled to Nick as she came up to her car, which had stayed relatively unscathed in the recent attacks.
It only took an aggressively driving Laura 2 minutes to plow through what would have been a 10 minute drive, though the siren that she stuck to the roof didn’t hurt either. Laura pulled the car over to the curb a block away from the address and jumped out.
“Just keep an eye out for things, I have a bad feeling about this,” Laura muttered as she and Nick jumped out of the car.
“Okay I understand that that explosion back there was kinda freaky but don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?” Nick complained as he scoped the scene.
“Hey, just look around for something. I’m not asking you to run a marathon or do a mountain of paperwork, unless that’s what you’d prefer,” Laura responded.
“Not really,” Nick replied. The two had walked less than ten steps when a familiar sight across the street caught their gaze.
The limo hurriedly pulled up to the curb before Natalie burst out, ordering the limo to drive off as she and a band of her cohorts charged the office building before them.
“How sure are you of the credibility of this threat?!” she demanded of her servants.
“As sure as the sun sets and rises ma’am,” one of the men quickly responded.
“Check downstairs and the basement, I’ll go up,” she ordered as she began dashing up the stairs of the building alone. Natalie continued to prowl the hallways slowly looking for any sign of forced entry when she noticed a shadow dashing from around the corner. Natalie immediately reached one of her hands onto her waist. The shadow continued to dart back and forth in the corridors. Natalie rounded the corner only to discover a nearby apartment door left ajar. Natalie slipped into the apartment silently. She scanned room after room to find the mysterious figure. As she rounded the corner to the last possible hiding place in the apartment, the boom of a very powerful gunshot reverberated across the entire hallway, prompting the young woman to peer into the room with utmost caution, hand on her gun. Much to her surprise, there was only an adolescent Arabic boy feebly holding onto a poor condition sniper rifle. A slight grin crept across Natalie’s face as she read into the boy’s weakness and nonchalantly stepped out into open view.
“You do realize that gun is not only old but improperly aligned right? Also, your form looks vomit worthily awful,” Natalie sneered. The boy, exactly as she anticipated, whirled around and attempted to to take down his unexpected company only to flail more than a foot off target due to anxiety. “Oh don’t be too hard on yourself, I actually thought you did well for a mentally impaired insect,” she taunted. The boy, more in rage than shock, attacked with a second weapon, a machete, only to effortlessly be disarmed and pinned to the ground by the mysterious taunting demon. Natalie was ready to knock the boy out and carry her prize out when she heard a thumping pair of feet careening down the hall let her know she herself had uninvited company. Deciding it was better that the boy avoid falling into unfamiliar hands and escape, Natalie loosened her grip and feigned weakness when the boy subsequently knocked her over, fleeing as fast as his feet could take him. She stood back up when the boy was out of sight when a lanky looking man with an FBI badge ran up to her and held a gun to her head.
“Freeze, FBI!” he yelled while pulling out a set of handcuffs. Natalie sighed yet complied and raised her hands in the air.
“Tell me agent... whatever your name is. Do you value your life?”
As Nick sprinted after the assassin, Laura surveyed the rest of the block. To her shock and dismay, she noticed the President get out of his limo into line of sight of nearly dozens of sniper positions. When Laura noticed what looked like a sniper rifle flashing in the window of the building, she rushed towards the President as fast as her feet could carry her. Laura jumped and pounced on the Commander in-chief, knocking him to the ground and not a second too soon as the loud bang of what could only have been an explosive tipped 50 caliber bullet smashed into the Presidential limo with enough force to leave the window riddled with fractures.
Chapter 4
The two unlikely heroes, a tall and slender blond woman and her shorter lanky companion, were shown into the waiting room where they would soon meet their unlikely beneficiary.
“I let her get away... I should have called for backup or something...” brooded Nick even as he was given a hero’s treatment.
“You did good, the President as well as I am alive because you got up there in time,” Laura reassured him as she patted her hand on his shoulder. Nick glowered, not really satisfied with his companion’s reassurances.
“Let’s just not talk about it ok?” he muttered miserably.
“Aw, is someone upset they got beat up by a girl?” mocked Laura.
“She hit me when I wasn’t looking...” he defended.
“Nick, you had a goddamn gun to her head, stop making excuses,” Laura responded.
“The President will see you now,” said a receptionist to the duo, prompting both of them to stand up.
“Stay sitting, you two have already strained yourselves enough for a day,” beamed President Chamberlain. It was striking that he managed pull off such a vibrant smile in spite of the countless hazardous obstacles he had to traverse in one day.
“Mr President, it’s an honor,” uttered a suddenly nervous Laura, who awkwardly reached out to shake the President’s hand.
“The honor is all mine Miss Mason,” said Chamberlain as he firmly grasped and shook her hand. “Unfortunately as much as I’d wish to make this all celebrations and awards I’m afraid what just happened this afternoon is just the tip of the iceberg,” he continued.
“What... do you mean?”
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