Children's Games: Part 1
Rated PG for rampant bad language and some rather explicit violence.
Summary: Five years after Spike's death, Faye and Jet find an old friend and new trouble, and the beginning of a new adventure.
The weeks after Spike's death had been hard on both Jet and Faye, but somehow, they had stayed together. Actually, it had taken a lot of work on Jet's part to keep Faye from running off and jumping off a bridge...or worse. He knew it was possible for Faye to take herself out in a blaze of death even more impressive than the one Spike had caused.
Jet's grief had passed quickly. He had known, as soon as Spike poked his head in looking for some grub, that he would never see Spike again. He had tried to talk Spike out of it, but it was too late. Spike had already died once, then again when Julia died. It was all a matter of time until his body joined him. Jet's loss had ended with a toast to Spike's skill and his style. Spike would have wanted to take as many people with him when he went, especially this Vicious guy. And, well, Spike got his wish.
Amazingly, Faye's grief hadn't lasted as long as Jet had imagined it would. After a three-day bender, Faye somehow found her way back to the crashed Bebop, slept for 48 hours straight, cried for 24 more, taken a long shower, and re-emerged. She was hardly back to normal. She had just found out that she had almost died herself. But now, she was going to re-make herself, not live in the past. In her mind, Spike was all but forgotten. Whether this was a testament to her strength, a showing of how messed up her revelation had made her, or a confirmation that Faye really was a selfish bitch at heart was hard to tell. One way or another, Faye was going to move on. After all, Spike was just a partner.
Jet would never forget that stubborn jerk, the one that held their little 'family' all together, and had always had the main drive and ambition. Not that Faye wasn't just as ambitious, but Spike's ambition was more goal-oriented.
In short, Faye and Jet had remained on the Bebop for the simple reason that they needed each other. Jet was still healing from his bullet wound, and the ship was grounded, so he needed Faye to go out and get just one bounty that would get them off this rock. Faye needed a place to stay, and something to do, so she didn't do something destructive.
The period of mourning was over, and it was time for the crew to get back in the sky.
Five years passed...
Jet and Faye never left each other. The pair had become incredibly efficient, even without their hacker and their crack fighter. Now, Faye had to fill in for Spike, and Jet had to take over Ed's job. Still, once they got into the flow of their jobs, the legendary success rate of the Bebop continued.
Now, they were back on Earth. While, normally, the planet didn't hold much in the way of activity, Jet had stumbled upon what he called a "gold mine."
"So what are we after, Jet?" Faye lounged on the couch behind Jet.
"A terrorist group called The Children."
Faye perked an eyebrow.
"Not like that. The youngest known members are about 16. They don't seem to have any actual children with them." Jet shrugged. "You know these crazy groups. Undoubtedly, it must have something to do with their ideas. Something about them being the children that are supposed to inherit the planet from our generation, and they're claiming we're messing up their precious home."
Faye chuckled. "Not our fault. It's the meteors that are messing up their precious home. Oh, well. How am I supposed to understand how they work? What's the bounty?"
Jet's eyes bugged out of his head. "A million...apiece." He turned around and grinned at Faye. "And they work in numbers. They've appeared in groups of about two dozen at times..."
So, that had decided it. The pair were off to Earth
Jet was pondering over the computer as they traveled. "Their mode of operations is interesting. They hit any major building they can; hotels, government offices, important stuff. But before they strike, they hack into the building's systems and effectively lock it down. No power or communications, and by the time anyone outside the building's figured out its getting hit, the 'Children' are long gone."
Faye nodded. "So they're not just thugs, they're computer nerds."
"Try computer geniuses. Says here no matter how well-prepared the buildings are, no one can ever trace the hacks. Just like the physical terrorists, the net terrorists are in and out quickly, without a trace."
"So the plot thickens."
After a long moment of silence, Jet froze. He rushed to the controls of the ship, with a sinking feeling. The controls were set to land at the Earth Central Spaceport. Jet swore as he looked out the front window. "We're out of hyperspace. But the Spaceport hasn't asked for our codes."
Faye snatched up her pistol belt, and paused at the weapons locker for a rifle. "I'm going down."
"Be careful, Faye! You're probably going to be outnumbered!"
Faye sent him a smirk. "I'm not stupid. We can get them one at a time, remember. Million woolongs, come to Mama!"
"You mean five hundred thousand! Don't forget my cut!" Jet shouted back.
"Killjoy!" Faye retorted.
With that, Faye sped down to Earth's surface in her ship.
As Jet had feared, all the power was out of the Earth Spaceport. The inside was so completely chaotic that no one noticed Faye enter. She at least had the discretion to hide her weapons under a long coat. Although, as she cautiously entered through one of the broken automatic doors, luckily paused while it was open, to get inside, she figured no one would have noticed another two guns anyway.
Almost right as she walked inside, the gunshots started.
A demanding voice rang out. "Everybody down!" The scared sheep of the crowd all screamed, a rather unnecessary anticlimactic response to the gunfire, and obeyed in fear. Faye dropped a little more slowly, to keep from playing her hand too early. She at least wanted to locate all of the thugs before taking them out.
She could see the loud one standing on a counter, brandishing an automatic rifle. Others were moving through the crowd, showing various weapons. Faye locked eyes with the one standing tall. Faye wanted to bring that one home as her first prize.
The loudmouth gestured, and one of the men moved to Faye, pulling her to her feet. The farce was gone; she looked insolently up at the guy that seemed to be running the show. His eyes scanned her up and down, taking in her leather-clad breasts and long slim legs.
"Bring her here," he ordered.
Faye shrugged off the pulling arm of Loudmouth's lackey, instead strutting over to the counter. "Can I help you?" she asked in her sultriest voice.
He nodded. "Yeah. We need to start taking hostages to prove to the government how serious we are. And I think we're going to start with you."
His leering face couldn't move fast enough to avoid Faye's fist. Before any of the other thugs could move, Faye had whipped out her pistol and put it against Loudmouth's temple.
"Wrong answer," she whispered, suddenly all business.
"If I die for the cause, it doesn't matter! Kill her, my brothers! It is all for the good of the cause!"
Faye cursed herself. Fanatic terrorists don't make good hostages or shields. They have no will to survive or fear of death. Still, she kept up her tough exterior, making sure that she had the situation under control. "That's fine. Any one of you is worth one million big ones. I don't need you."
His face paled. Faye smirked. So he was afraid of death. Unfortunately, the thugs were closing in on her. The rest of the people were still so afraid of the presence of a firearm that they were still on the ground. And now, Faye was seriously out-numbered. She paused for but a moment, before she was going to shoot the one nearest to her.
At that instant, Faye's world exploded.
Reflexively, as she fell off the counter, Faye's finger pulled the trigger. In yet another stroke of luck, Loudmouth fell with her and took the bullet in the shoulder. Her bounty was still alive. Faye stayed down until the loud crashes finally silenced themselves.
When she peered over the edge of the counter, the room was filled with smoke. It took Faye a long moment to realize what had just happened, though. Every video monitor and piece of electronic equipment on the walls had suddenly shorted out, sending sparks flying. The simultaneous sound was enough to startle the on-edge people into believing the room had exploded.
But, still, Faye had her prisoner. In the continued chaos, Faye grabbed Loudmouth by his good shoulder and started dragging him. All he could do was whimper and grab at his wound as Faye left through the door she had entered by.
That was some stroke of luck on her part. In fact, the entire job had been rather in her favor. Which meant, in Faye's mind, that it had been a set-up. Someone was looking out for her.
"Oh Je-et! Look what I found!"
Faye tossed the restrained Loudmouth into the ship before her. He screamed in pain as his poorly bandaged shoulder banged against the deck.
Jet hissed. "Not there! I don't want him bleeding all over the deck plates!" He dragged the bounty to his feet. "Not bad. One down, lord only knows how many to go."
"My friends will come for me," Loudmouth retorted. "We'll do to you exactly what we've done to all of Ea..."
His speech was cut off as Faye slapped the duct tape over his mouth. "I wanted to do that the instant I saw him," she explained.
Jet slid Loudmouth's wallet out of his pocket. "David Harrison..." He moved to the computer and re-opened the files he had found on The Children. "Hey, good work, Faye! This guy's one of their heads."
Faye smiled. "Excellent. Maybe we can squeeze 1.5 out of them for him."
Jet patted David on the head. "Let's keep him around for a while. He seems to like you, Faye."
David's muffled hissing through the duct tape suggested anything but.
Faye agreed, though. "If he's right, and the others do come for him, it'll make this job a lot easier."
After Faye had disappeared with David, the Children had made a hasty retreat. Luckily, they had been able to get out in the confusion, as well. They were swearing to each other as they ran.
"That fucking bitch grabbed David! Now what?" Brian complained loudly once they made it back to their hideout.
Charles shook his head. "I knew she was feisty when I grabbed her, but no, David had to go and piss her off."
Brian threw up his hands. "Why did she take him in the first place?"
Harold rolled his eyes at his partner's naiveté. "She's a bounty hunter, Brian," he explained slowly. "Either that or a counter-terrorist."
Alex raised his hand. "One question. That explosion wasn't in the plan. What happened there?"
Harold's brow furrowed. "Good question. Someone must have suddenly restored power and overloaded the entire system."
Alex bit his lip to stifle the sudden, scaring thought that just entered his mind. "They would have had to already been in the system to do that, wouldn't they?"
Harold nodded, slowly, not understanding where Alex was going with his line of thinking.
"I have to go talk to someone." Alex walked out of the main room, where the group was still whining about the plan gone bad, into the back room. The Children's hackers were cooped up in there, in the safest place they could be. These Children were invaluable to the cause. The grunt work could be replaced at any time, but the genius contained in these minds was irreplaceable.
Alex was looking for one hacker in particular; the one that had been in the system at the time, and the only one who had the skill to take on the entire Spaceport computer network.
"Ed? Are you in here?"