Chronology Note: This fanfic is based on the FMP novel timeline. It begins in 1998.
When Did My Life Become a Bad Action Movie?
My name is Alexander Thorne, and right now I'm feeling incredibly lucky.
Not that I'm not a pretty lucky person to begin with. I live in beautiful, peaceful Canada, not one of those war torn countries in Asia or Africa. I come from a stable middle class family with no real issues, unlike some of my peers at school whose parents are divorced. And I'm very smart –in fact, people sometimes call me a genius because of the electronic devices I build in my spare time. Really, aside from being born on Christmas Eve and having to put up with a bratty little sister, I don't have much to complain about.
There's one thing I'm not normally very lucky with though, and that's girls. When I was in grade seven, my school held a dance for those of us who would soon be moving on to high school. Now, I thought having a dance to celebrate graduating from elementary school was kind of pointless, but since I was there, I decided to go up to one of the girls I liked and ask her if she wanted to dance. She and the group of friends she was chatting with stared at me like I was some sort of weird space alien, then bolted across the room.
I haven't bothered asking a girl to do anything with me since then. I'm perfectly happy to just hang out with my geek friends. We do LAN parties and talk about Star Wars and stuff –we're all really looking forward to the new prequel movie that's coming out next year, it's going to be awesome. I'll admit to being a little annoyed when idiot losers who have nothing better to do with their time claim I'm gay because I don't spend all my time talking about girls, but screw them.
Anyway, given my past experience with girls you can imagine my surprise when one of my female classmates came and approached me out of the blue. Not only that, but it was one of the prettiest girls in my grade. Elina Schmidt just moved here from the States during the summer. She's slim, maybe about five three or five four, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a hint of freckles. As far as I can tell, she has good fashion sense, though I'm far from being an expert on such things. I just know that the things she wears look good on her.
I still can't believe such a cute girl is interested in a geek like me. I mean, it's not like I thought I'd never have any luck with the ladies. But I always figured I'd have to wait until I got into university. I never thought one of the girls at my high school would show an interest in me –they only seem to be interested in the good looking guys who play sports.
Maybe it's because I finally got my braces removed. Or maybe she appreciates how smart I am. She seems really interested in some of the electronic devices I've built. I don't think she actually understands them very well, but she's definitely interested in them. She actually asked if she could borrow the hologram projector I built recently.
Anyway, Elina is super cute, and today I'm on a date with her. Right now we're going to see a movie. I don't have my full driver's license yet, so we're walking. I don't really mind. It's late September, so the weather is about as good as it ever gets here in Suburban Toronto –its pleasantly warm, not muggy like it is in the summer or freezing cold like it is in the winter.
Elina and I are currently walking hand in hand past a row of small shops. On the other side of the street is the parking lot of a new shopping center. It's not very busy right now because most of the new stores aren't open yet. Beside me, Elina stirs as we approach a side alley.
"Hey, if we cut through here, we can save ourselves some walking," she informs me as she gestures down the alley. I blink in surprise. She's only been here a little over a month –when did she have the time to learn shortcuts? Before I have a chance to formulate a reply, Elina is already dragging me down the passage. I allow myself to be led down the side alley and around the corner into a back street, but there I stop dead.
There's a large panel van parked a little ways up the street from where I'm standing. It's white, not black –it could easily belong to one of the businesses whose back doors open onto this deserted street. Despite that, there's something about the vehicle that makes my hair on end.
"Elina, let's just go the regular route," I suggest. Elina turns and frowns at me.
"Why?" she enquires.
"There's a van here. It's suspicious."
Elina looks incredulous for a moment, then laughs and makes a "c'mon" gesture.
"It's probably just a delivery vehicle for one of the businesses here. Besides, there are two of us. If something happens, I've got you to protect me."
I smile nervously at her teasing. I'm tempted to just do as she says. It seems pretty ridiculous to be afraid of walking past a parked delivery vehicle. But my instincts are telling me to stay away. I slowly shake my head.
"No."
The smile slowly fades from Elina's face.
"I see."
She reaches over and opens the fashionable looking looking leather handbag that's hanging from her shoulder. I watch as she dips her hand inside…
What the hell?
Elina just took a handgun out of her bag. A large black handgun. I actually recognize the model –it's a Beretta, like the one John McClane carries in Die Hard. It's the same pistol the US Army uses. The damn thing looks absolutely huge in Elina's slender hands, but she's holding it rock steady as she aims it directly towards me.
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. This can't be happening. After all, we're in Toronto. Canada. I mean, I know Elina's American and all, but still… that gun can't be real. It's probably a replica, and this is all some sort of stupid prank she's pulling on me…
As if reading my thoughts, Elina racks the Beretta, and out pops a single golden bullet. It falls to the pavement with a metallic tinkle, bounces once, then rolls for a few inches before coming to a stop with its tip pointing more or less in my direction.
"There are fourteen more where that one came from," Elina informs me, her blue eyes cold as she points the gun at me. She gestures towards the van with a nod. "Now be quiet and walk over to the van. Passenger's side. If you try to run or make any noise, I'll shoot you."
I hesitate. I want to run, but she's got fourteen shots in that Beretta, and we're only perhaps ten feet apart. There's no way I can dodge all those bullets. If I try to run, I'm as good as dead. But if I do what she says, then what?
Suddenly there's a loud bang like a firecracker going off, and I flinch, expecting to feel a sharp lance of pain. But I feel nothing. Instead, I watch as Elina falls to the ground, killed by a shot to the head. Numb with shock, I stare uncomprehendingly at her body on the pavement, its fingers still wrapped firmly around the grip of the Beretta.
"Come with me," a voice orders.
Turning to look over my shoulder, I'm confronted by the sight of a tiny little Asian girl standing near the corner. She's no more than perhaps five feet tall, with light copper coloured skin and a softly rounded face framed by glossy black shoulder length hair. Oh, and she's holding a submachine gun of some kind. I don't know the model. It's sleek and black, with a folding shoulder brace and a long curved clip jutting out the bottom between front and rear handgrips. Whatever it is, it's a lot bigger than Elina's Beretta –heck, it looks nearly as big as the girl who's carrying it.
That girl is my classmate Mei Ling. She came to Canada from Southern China to study, and that's about all I know about her. Heck, I'm not sure I would even be able to remember who she is if we weren't in so many of the same classes at school. She's very quiet and tends to keep to herself. I had the impression she was shy, but looking at her now I'm starting to think otherwise.
Shit, when did my life become a bad action movie? I mean, what's next? My little sister showing up with Rambo's M-60? Or maybe my grandmother with a Gatling gun?
As I stand there like an idiot, Mei abruptly raises the submachine gun to her shoulder, flips a switch on its side, and pulls the trigger. There's a burst of flame from the weapon's muzzle, and a stream of little brass casings go spinning off through the air. Thankfully Mei doesn't seem to be aiming at me. I turn my head around just in time to see one of the masked men who are piling out of the van collapse to his knees, the Uzi he was carrying clattering to the pavement as he falls. Behind him, another masked man racks the bolt of his rifle, a big military style weapon with a skeletonized wire stock.
"Come with me," Mei says again. This time she grabs my hand and starts dragging me back the way I came. I don't even try to resist. Instead I do everything I can to keep up. Behind us, a gunshot rings out as we round the corner into the side alley and run as fast as we can towards the street. Letting go of my hand, Mei grabs the collar of her jacket and starts yelling something about phalanxes and Prometheus and automatic weapons and the parking lot of the shopping center across the street. I don't pay it any mind. I'm too busy running for my life.
Someone behind us yells "stop!" Two shots ring out, and I hear the whistle of a passing bullet somewhere to my left. As we reach the end of the alley, Mei dodges to the right, then continues to run straight out onto the road. Tires squeal as a minivan brakes to avoid hitting us, and another vehicle blares its horn. Then we're across the road and into the shopping center's parking lot. Glancing back quickly to make sure I'm still there, Mei runs towards a large older model Chrysler that's parked a little over halfway across the mostly empty lot. She leaps onto and over the big car's hood, then turns and drops to one knee as she lands on the other side. I presume she intends to use the vehicle's engine block as cover and quickly run around the front of the car to join her.
"Find the spare ammo and give it to me," Mei orders as she slings the backpack she's carrying off her shoulder. Without waiting for my response, she aims her submachine gun over the hood of the Chrysler and opens fire on our pursuers, who spread out and respond in kind. I can see now that there are three of them, two armed with rifles, the other with an Uzi. One of them drops his rifle as a round strikes his arm, but immediately draws a pistol with his other hand and continues to fire towards Mei and I. My heart pounds like a jackhammer as rounds whistle by over my head, but Mei seems unfazed. She fires her submachine gun at the enemy in short bursts to conserve ammo, and when the clip runs dry she performs a lightning fast reload using a second clip that's joined to the first with a metal clamp.
The sight of Mei reloading spurs me to action. I seize the already partially unzipped backpack and turn it upside down, emptying its contents out onto the concrete. Out falls a taser, one of those high tech needless injectors that always gets compared to the hyposprays in Star Trek, several hand grenades, and four curved clips that are joined into pairs by the same type of metal clamp as the two that are already hanging from Mei's gun. It vaguely occurs to me that these are not normal things for a Canadian high school student to have, but right now I don't give a damn. I seize a pair of clips in each hand and thrust them onto the hood of the Chrysler just in front of where Mei is crouching.
Across the parking lot one of the masked men staggers, then goes down. I feel a surge of hope as Mei performs another reload, this time utilizing one of the clips I'd laid on top of the hood for her. There are only two enemies left now, and one of them is the wounded man with the pistol. Perhaps I'm actually going to make it out of this alive.
The moment I think that, a white panel van similar to the one I saw in the back alley swerves into the parking lot from the now otherwise empty street. Mei sprays the vehicle's windshield with bullets, but it keeps coming, careening across the concrete until it slams into a small sedan, one of a pair that are parked side by side a short distance in front of and to the left of the Chrysler Mei and I are using as cover. The van's sliding door is hidden from view on its opposite side, but its ground clearance is high enough that I'm able to see the shoes of its undoubtedly heavily armed passengers as they hit the pavement and fan out.
Man, someone up there must really have it out for me today.
Mei grabs her collar and yells something about the white van and new contacts as she empties the remainder of her clip at the last uninjured enemy from the first group. He goes down, and she switches to a fresh clip just in time to fire on the newcomers as some of them take up position behind the pair of cars. They duck out of sight to avoid her fire, then poke out their rifles and submachine guns and blindly fire back over our heads. I duck as the rounds whistle by, Mei does not.
A man pops up holding an Uzi, and takes a burst to the chest for his trouble. Another comes around the rear of the van in an attempt to flank us, but Mai drives him back with two quick bursts, the first of which wounds one of his forearms. She's doing really well at keeping the enemy at bay... and then her gun abruptly runs empty.
A masked man rises from behind one of the cars, his rifle slung across his chest and a cylindrical grenade of some sort in his hands. Dropping the empty submachine gun, Mei pulls a pistol from somewhere under her jacket and fires. The pistol cycles one, two, three times, and the man with the grenade falls to the ground dead. I hear a loud curse, and the grenade goes sailing off in a random direction as one of the men behind the cars gets rid of it the quickest way he can, not caring where it ultimately ends up as long as it's away from him. The device ultimately explodes somewhere off to my left, producing a bright flash and a loud bang.
Mei fires more rounds from her pistol as she attempts to keep the enemy pinned down, but it makes a poor substitute for the submachine gun. It's only a matter of time now. Soon she's going to run out of ammo, and when she does we're both dead.
Just when it seems like things can't possibly get any worse, I hear a squeal of rubber, and look over to see a dark blue Suburban jump the curb and come barreling across the parking lot towards me. As the vehicle approaches, the head and torso of a man wearing a ski mask, helmet, and bullet proof vest rises smoothly up through a hatch in its roof, and an enormous pedestal mounted Gatling gun swings into place in front of him, its muzzle pointing directly at Mei and I. Then -just when I think it's all over- the Gatling gun swings to the left, away from me and towards the van, the two cars, and the enemies who are using them as cover.
A roar like a giant buzz saw fills the air as the Gatling gun comes to life, a massive jet of flame spewing from its muzzle can as it sends a seemingly continuous stream of tracers sweeping across the van and the pair of cars. Windows shatter, sheet metal is perforated, and one of the cars goes up like a torch as the tracers find its fuel tank. A masked man stands and attempts to return fire with his rifle but is immediately cut down as the merciless stream of bullets sweeps across him.
The Suburban rolls to a stop perhaps fifteen feet in front of the Chrysler, but the gunner doesn't stop shooting. He keeps pouring tracers into the van and the cars until all three have been reduced to flaming, bullet riddled wrecks. Only then does he cease firing and allow the barrels to spin to a stop.
There's a dull ringing in my ears as a deathly stillness descends over the parking lot. The ground around the Suburban is littered with hundreds of spent casings, and clouds of thick smoke drift upwards from the fires that have engulfed the van and the two cars. I idly wonder whether the owners of the cars will be able to get their insurance to cover this sort of damage. It seems doubtful.
The Suburban's driver and front passenger doors swing open, and a pair of men step out onto the pavement. Like the gunner atop the vehicle, they wear helmets, ski masks, and bullet proof vests, but the clothes beneath the bulletproof vests are civilian. They're armed with what my inner gaming nerd identifies as FN P90s –sleek, high tech submachine guns that fire special armor piercing bullets. They're not the sort of gun that just anyone can get their hands on.
The two men walk over to the flaming wrecks of the vehicles and disappear behind them for a few moments before reappearing. One of them gives Mei a thumbs up sign.
"All clear. Outstanding work, Corporal. I think I'm going to recommend you for a promotion –or at least a pay increase."
Mei rises to her feet and gives the man a nod, as if this is all just an ordinary day's work for her.
"Thank you, Sergeant."
Following Mei's lead, I get to my feet as the two newcomers approach.
"Are you all right, Mr. Thorne?" the man Mei identified as "Sergeant" enquires. "Any injuries?"
I feel a slight chill at the man's question. How does he know my name? More importantly, why does he know my name?
"No sir," I answer cautiously. The Sergeant nods his head.
"Good. Please come with us."
Mei is starting to gather up the spilled contents of her backpack and put them away. I glance over at her, then turn back to the Sergeant and slowly shake my head.
"No offense, but I'm not sure I want to do that."
The man looks directly at me. The eyes visible through the holes in his ski mask are green, and they seem vaguely familiar, as if I've seen them around the neighbourhood somewhere.
"This is for your own protection, Mr. Thorne. The people who tried to kidnap you today may make another attempt in the future."
I shake my head, more firmly this time.
"I don't want to come."
"This is for your protection, Mr. Thorne," the Sergeant insists.
I tense up. These people seem to want me alive. They went to considerable lengths to ensure that I stayed alive. Maybe if I try to run…
Something touches the side of my neck, and I hear a soft hissing sound. I turn and look down to see Mei holding the needless injector in her hand.
What the hell… did she just drug me?
"Sorry," Mei says blandly, clearly not sorry at all. I try to move, but all the strength seems to have drained out of my body. I feel my legs give way underneath me, but the Sergeant and his companion rush over and grab me before I can fall to the pavement. They immediately pick me up and begin to carry me towards the waiting Suburban, whose gunner is swinging the Gatling gun slowly back and forth as he scans the surrounding area for threats.
My vision begins to go black as Mei opens one of the Suburban's rear doors. I can hear the Sergeant yelling something about getting "the gun" stowed, but his voice is becoming fainter and fainter.
Who are these people? What do they want with me? When did my life become a bad action movie?
Those questions are the last thoughts to go through my head before I lose consciousness completely.