"You can call me Lacy." I can't believe that I just said that name. I have no idea who I am or where I am from, only what I am doing. I am going to Corinth city. I had been driving around in circles for months raiding gas tank after gas tank out here in the wastelands. I didn't know my real name but somehow Lacy just slipped off my tongue.
I look over to the passenger seat where a guy I had just met sat. We were running what he called the Venjix barricade. I didn't know exactly what or who this Venjix was but I was guessing it was tied into all the killer robots I had been killing, usually whenever I had to stop my car for something.
This man who calls himself Flynn is quite strange himself. He has a Corinth city ID card but won't tell me what he is doing out here in the middle of nowhere. I don't think he entirely trusts me and he certainly has his rights about that. I mean I am currently running my car full speed into something that is apparently very lethal. But then again I don't trust him either; he tried to convince me that a muffler pipe was a gun. He tried to steal my car! My car! For crying out loud this car is the only thing I own and it isn't even that much, just a rundown Junker that I managed to find in my early days out here.
"Well Lacy, it was nice knowing you." Flynn responded as if to almost say, 'Of course you wait till this moment of imminent death to tell me your name'.
"Hand me that last charge." I asked him as I pointed to the last explosive at his feet. I watched as he picked up the charge and accidently activated it. As I recalculated how hard I would have to throw it I hit the brakes unexpectedly and he let go of it to have it fell into the back seat.
"That isn't good is it?" he asked me as he looked at me in a panic.
I did another calculation and looked at where it landed. Timing how long we had till it went off I performed a tricky maneuver. The maneuver was successful in throwing the charge from the car but even more unexpectedly was that it did the best possible thing and hit the barricade as well. I was grinning from ear to ear as a huge hole appeared in the wall.
Without another thought I drove right through the wall and up to the gate. Someone must have been watching because the gate opened as we drove up to it. Once inside my car finally hit its last straw. I had had just enough gas to get me into Corinth city and for that I was so grateful.
"Odin's beard, we made it!" Flynn turned around as he pinched himself to make sure he was alive.
"We made it but we aren't safe yet." I replied as I turned around to look at what followed us into the city. I was about to open my car door and kick the invaders' butts back out of what was supposed to be a safe haven for humanity when three people about my age came running past my car.
"Lacy, just relax you are inside Corinth now. We are safe, let the power rangers deal with the intruders." He looked at me and smiled before putting his feet on my dashboard.
I watched for quite awhile, "Power rangers?" I asked after a bit.
"Yes, just watch them. I nearly considered trying out but I have a bad streak with those types of jobs. I am just meant to be a mechanic, like my Dad was and the same with my Granddad." He nodded slowly as he watched the three people fight, "You might make a good power ranger, you should see if they are accepting anymore applications."
"What do the power rangers do?"
"Well they work for this mysterious person, no one saw him enter the city and no one, not even the rangers, know what he looks like. He has these incredible tools that the rangers use to keep the city safe from the occasional breaches Venjix makes. The city constantly has to rotate having the shields down because coils burn out and such. So there are the three of them to protect the city when that happens." Flynn described.
Just then the rangers pulled a device from their pockets and did something to cause them to glow. When the glow stopped they were different. They were armored up and ready to fight harder than they had been.
"Yes that is the best part about the rangers, their awesome uniforms." Flynn grinned, "I think you would be a good ranger."
"I will think about it. I need to get my life in order first and do some soul searching. I don't know if I told you but Lacy isn't my real name."
"I knew you really didn't seem like a Lacy." He laughed back
"I don't know my name. Lacy is the name on a keychain I found when I found this car. So for the time being call me Lacy." I looked back at him and raised an eyebrow.
"So you mean to say you have amnesia?" he laughed, "I was just brought back to the city by an amnesiac. That is just crazy."
"It might be crazy but it is life." I smiled but let it melt very quickly when I saw what the robots were up to. "Flynn we have to do something, they are going to do something to the yellow ranger." I jumped out of the car knowing that I wouldn't be able to start the car fast enough. I could however jump them and at least give the rangers the advantage on this.
I jumped on the primary robot and twisted its head off before kicking it to the ground. I made what I thought to be a good show of destroying those things. I had destroyed enough of them out in the wastelands to know I could slow them down by a lot.
After the rangers had finished with what they had been doing the yellow ranger ran over to me and took her helmet off. "Thank you, I don't know who you are but they almost had me there. Where did you learn to fight?" she asked with a huge smile as she looked into my eyes.
"I don't know where I learned to fight. It has just come very naturally to me." That wasn't a lie, it was the truth. I didn't know how I knew half the stuff I was able to do but till I had met Flynn a few hours ago, I had thought I was normal but now I was questioning, maybe there was something strange about me after all.
I looked at the yellow ranger and it looked like she was about to say something however she was pushed out of the way by a bunch of people in military uniforms. I thought they were coming for me however they surrounded Flynn who had at some point come to stand by me. I was forced to watch in horror as they arrested him before turning on me.
"You're under arrest for being an accomplice to this menace." I willingly, not wanting to make any trouble, let them handcuff me. I was ready to break their necks though, I was a newcomer to this city and I only wanted to make a life for myself. Maybe it would have been better if I had taken my chances in the wastelands.
RPM
I sat and glared at Flynn; the both of us now sported matching uniforms and were sharing a cell in the underground prison of Corinth city. "So do you care to tell me what we are doing in jail?"
"Well, umm, the reason I was outside the walls of Corinth was because I was on the run. I made an attempt at being a cop and a fireman as well as a few other occupations outside the walls of this city. Well I have this habit of winding up in very bad situations. So my father brought me with him to Corinth as long as I promised to stay out of trouble. I minded myself for most of this last year working as one of his mechanics however I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got myself framed by one of the cartels for blowing up one of the old storage facilities." He explained which made me sympathize with him just a little bit.
I could understand being misunderstood for some reason. Oh yeah, that was because I was just accused of being his accomplice and so far no one had listened to me. I was getting mad and I didn't think anyone wanted to see me mad. Heck I had only seen myself mad at those stupid robots and that never ended well for any of them. But I wouldn't hurt Flynn; he had gotten me to the city when I had been driving myself in circles
Luckily, I didn't have to wait long to find a way to expel my anger. They opened our cell and let us walk to dinner. I had noticed that I was the only woman in this particular unit and the answer to that was I was just being held temporarily and the women's ward was full. So they put me in the one cell that they could watch me in. Unfortunately, it was in the Men's ward.
At dinner a few of the prisoners made some gestures to me that definitely angered me more. Those were not gestures you made to a woman and even I knew that. Just one gesture would have been enough to knock me over the edge but with all of them combined, let's just say for the sake of it, it caused me to turn into a killing machine. I was careful not to kill them, just severely hurt them where it counted to make them think twice about how they used their minds.
I had evidently been so quick that the guard who was standing outside the door didn't even know what was going on till I was sitting back in my seat eating my dinner while all the other prisoners writhed in pain on the floor.
I was taken to what they called solitary confinement. This room was little more than a cage in the middle of the ward. Once I was in the room someone came up to me with a scanner. They told me it was standard procedure for registration into the city so I shrugged and held out my arms. I wanted to become a citizen even if I was going to spend most of it in their prison system for beating up the entire male population.
When they finished I put my arms down to utter silence as all the guards around me just stared. "What?" I eyed them.
"You are aware you have Venjix technology all through your body young lady?"
I gasped, "Venjix… Isn't that the computer virus that everyone is talking about?" I couldn't believe that what they were saying. I wasn't a machine, I ate and I drank… I even slept, I did a few other things that from my knowledge were pretty human as well but I doubted they wanted to know about them.
"Yes it is. I am sure it is a mistake on the scanners part but we are going to have to take several precautions just to be on the safe side." The soldier said as he shook his head.
"Of course, do whatever you need to. I don't mean you any harm." I nodded accepting whatever was going to need to be done. I however was not expecting to be chained to a chair while they did further tests. Someone came and cut a lock of my hair and another took a swab of skin from my mouth. I was completely willing with them and never postured my body.
I got my reward for good behavior when the yellow ranger came into my cell and sat on the other side of a table that was placed in front of me. She smiled sadly at me and placed an item in front of me.
"This was found in your car. I thought it looked pretty important and I wanted to thank you for the help back there. My name is Summer by the way." She slid the item over the table it was my watch, the only item I had had with me when I had woken up in the middle of a sand dune.
"I don't know my name, though I am having people call me Lacy." I replied with a nod, "I just want to get on with my life."
"Look I will see what I can do about getting you out of here. I owe you for back there." Summer nodded as she stood up.
RPM
I waited for three days and while I waited my good behavior paid off because, while I was not allowed out of my cell and my meals were brought to me, I was unchained and allowed to move around my cage. The other men could see me and I found out that all I had to do was walk to the side closest to them and stand there, the result was that they cowered. They feared me and it was actually kind of exciting to know I had that kind of power over all the men in this prison.
Summer didn't return for those three days but when I did see her she came followed by two men who had their arms crossed and watched me while they were introduced.
"Lacy, I would like you to meet our blue ranger Ziggy…"
"Ziggy Grover, nice to meet you I saw your work out there and was very impressed." The blue ranger threw himself all over the place in front of me. I just raised an eyebrow and looked at Summer who shrugged.
"And this is our team leader Scott." Summer nodded pointing to the man wearing the red highlighted jacket.
"Nice to meet you Lacy, Summer here says some good things about you, though I am not one to believe it till I can see it." Scott looked me in the eye as if judging me.
"So umm, nice to see you again Summer, but I have to ask is this just stand around and gawk at me hour?" I shook my head confused
"No, I promised to find you a way out of this cell and I always follow through on my promises. I have talked the guys into giving you a chance to try out to be a power ranger with us." Summer said with all seriousness.
"You have to be kidding me." I threw my arms in the air and walked in a circle before turning back. "But what if I say no?"
"You stay in this cell, in solitary confinement till they have findings that say otherwise. And right now it isn't looking good on your case with the Venjix hardware in your body." Scott crossed his arms.
"So if I say yes I am free to be with you till they make this finding and then I am back here?" I shake my head trying to understand.
"No if you say yes, you are to be released permanently to Dr. K's care. You will have to live at the garage with us and agree to any testing he might want to perform on you, to find out the extent of the machinery in you." Scott replied with a glint in his eye.
"Oh, so it is either life behind bars or life as a guinea pig while just happening to candidate as a power ranger. I really don't know which one I am going to choose." I told them sarcastically as I sat down in the chair bolted to the floor of my cell.
"Lacy, Scott was being slightly unfair with the guinea pig statement. Dr. K isn't a bad person, he just has made this consent to try and help understand you. You will have pretty much free roam of the city as well as your car is being moved to the garage as we speak." Summer glared at Scott before looking at me.
"Can I think about it for tonight?" I ask as I look at all three of them.
Scott shrugged, "I guess we can wait till the morning though we will be here bright and early."
Summer grinned, "Oh Lacy, I know you will make the right choice."
I paced my cell the rest of the day and thought deeply about the choice. The way Summer put the deal sounded a lot better than Scott's wording but Scott's wording scared me and I didn't know if I would want to risk it.
I thought I had made my mind up till I was sitting there eating my dinner when Flynn walked past my cell on his way back to his. One glance at his face made me see just how terrible he looked; he was innocent but because these cartels were so powerful he was as good as dead. Something Summer had said made me think they might be open to negotiation. Flynn had mentioned to me that he had thought about trying out to be a ranger. Maybe he could be a ranger after all, if they were willing to take me and by the sound of it this Dr. K really wanted to examine me so maybe if he wanted me this badly he would also take Flynn.
By the time lights out in the prison was announced I was already lying on my cot staring at the ceiling. I counted the hours of the night and slept for a short while but woke rested, this was the first time I had counted my sleep and realized that I only slept for about half the time of all the other inmates. However, my night was not boring even though I stayed in bed I kept my mind busy and listened to the music from my pocket watch for a little while.
Just as the lights went on I started to get a flash on something. It was too fuzzy for me to make out and the lights chased away any hindering of the brief vision. Just as Scott had said they were standing in front of my cell even before I had picked myself up off the cot.
"Lacy have you made your decision yet?" Summer asked softly not wanting to be too loud this early in the morning.
"Possibly but I want to you to think about something. If I leave this cell I want you to promise to get Flynn out of here." I crossed my arms over my chest and stared Scott down.