Two days ago I was sitting at a desk writing computer code on a monitor taller than I was, two days ago I was sipping coffee in the break room of one of the largest companies in the world, but today I am not.
Yesterday I was eating pasta, laughing with my coworkers, but today I am not.
Today, I am in a desolate wasteland somewhere in the continental United States, and I have no idea why.
I suppose I should have expected to get myself into some sort of trouble, what with everything the corporation I work for has been getting into. I write computer programs for satellites around the world, and lately, some interesting bugs have been coming up though my codes.
Last Tuesday I had to delete and entire days work because of an error message I repeatedly about a launch code needed, Monday I had to reprogram an entire wiring system, twice, because someone was scrambling it, though, yesterday i received an email that I was sure I should not have gotten.
"Get rid of them." That was all it said.
I originally thought they were talking about the reporters that had gathered on the front steps of the building, looking for our CEO who'd been in the news after a sex scandal, but now it was apparent they were talking about me.
The email referred to a 'them', implying more than one person, but when I woke up, alone in the badlands, I'd forgotten about anyone else but myself.
I wondered all day, across hills and down basins without so much as a sighting of another creature, that is, besides the buzzards. They'd been circling me since id woken up, and that concerned me.
I was going to die out here.
I was a city girl from las vegas, I didn't know how to find water or get food, all I knew how to do was write computer code and maybe make a can of soup sometimes. I wasn't sure how long I'd been wandering when I realized a coyote was steps behind me. I knew exactly what he was waiting for, same as the birds, and I was honestly tempted to just give up, but for whatever reason I didn't.
My mouth was dry, my stomach ached, my ribs hurt from the distance I'd walked, but regardless of that all I was only focused on reaching the ever distant horizon. I swore to God it was getting farther away the longer I walked.
I watched my shadow go from infront of me to behind me in hours longer than time. I watched the sun set and I felt it's warm rays burning by back as it came up again.
The animals persisted.
It was like my progress meant nothing to them, Jesus Christ, this was all for nothing and I knew it, but I refused to believe it.
Finally my legs literally gave out from under me and I was forced to face the truth. Death reared its ugly canine head. Yellow eyes pierced me, I could feel the blood pouring out of wounds that weren't there, I knew I was dead. I couldn't speak, I couldn't pray, I couldn't plead for my life because I knew as soon as I opened my mouth only sand would flow from it.
Death pealed back its lips, saliva dripping from its mouth and its fangs bared. This was the end.
When I opened my eyes again I knew I was in hell.
It was so dark, and so hot. My skin burned hotter with every second. What had I done to deserve this? What sin had I committed to earn me here? I couldn't hold back my tears. Some sort of animalistic sob we asked it was though my lips as I cried. Why God? Why me?
Suddenly something ripped though the blackness, something pale that revealed the vast blue sky to me. My eyes burned, forced to dilate in the brightness as I screamed. Son of a bitch what was happening?
"What's wrong?" A feminine voice came, the owner of the voice passing in front of my vision as I shrieked again.
"It's okay, it's okay!" The woman soothed, her voice excited but authoritarian, "your okay, your alive!"
I was alive?
"I'm Penny, I'm alive, your alive too. Do you know where you are?" She asked, her voice calming. I felt her touch my arm, and I felt a stinging sensation too.
"I'm sorry, your sunburnt," she apologized as I ripped my arm back. I jerked into a sitting position, however every move I made brought me more pain. She was small, smaller than I was, short and small framed, with an untamed mane of long blonde hair. She was filthy and bruised, but her moon shaped face brought out a certain something I couldn't place against her sun tanned skin. The next thing I noticed was her body condition. She was skinny to say the least, I could see her collar bones clearly with her makeshift tank top, and when she brought her hand up to wave at me a little, I could see every long, thin bone in her hand.
She'd been out here for a long time, and I knew if something didn't change soon she'd be dying out here, and so would I.
"Do you know where you are?" She asked again, but I was in such a stupor I couldn't answer. I shook my head.
"That's okay, your in the desert not to be confused with the desert, no ice cream here," she laughed, "I'm Penny, what's your name?"
"Carrie," I managed to choke.
"Carrie, do you want something to drink?" She asked sweetly, I don't think I'd ever shook my head so fast. She disappeared, shrouding me back into darkness, but was back seconds later with something green in her hand. She handed me half of a smooth, odd shaped cactus with some kind of bitter, sour juice inside, but I greedily drank it anyway, despite the disgusting taste.
"You got kinda chewed up by that coyote, but I never would have found you if you hadn't been attacked," Penny explained as I drank, "he howled to alert his pack, but I found him first. We'll have something to eat later."
Finally coming up for air from the cactus juice, I took in a deep, humid breathe of air and coughed.
"I can't fucking believe this, what's going on?" I asked her, but she just shook her head.
"I've been out here for a year, if I had any idea I'd tell you," she sighed, her sweet smilie never leaving her face. How the living hell was she so cheery?
"How are you still alive?" I finally asked her after a long silence, she shook her head and muttered something like 'I don't know' under her breathe.
The next few hours were uneventful, besides familiarizing myself with my environment. We were centered around a crashed plane in which Penny used to pilot. She went down in a freak monsoon dessert rain storm while carrying, get this, cans of creamed corn. She'd managed to make them last this long, paired with cactus parts and scavenged meat, and I was more than glad for it.
"So you just, strung up that blanket over the shattered windows in the cargo cabin, okay, and you just live in the plane?" I asked, trying to keep her story straight. I'd never been in a cargo plane before, so I had no idea what the inside of one looked like until now.
Penny had a pretty good system here, she'd made a makeshift door to replace the damaged one in the crash out of the side of a crate and had organized the cans on one side of the room and the crate wood on the other. She used empty corn cans to collect water in case it ever rained (I understand it only had twice in one year), if she a drink though, a large group of cactus grew nearby. She was apparently very good at rationing and organizing.
"Yeah, when we crashed, only the landing gear and the computer systems were destroyed, if you can believe it. Well, I mean all the glass broke and some stuff got shook up, but yeah. My co-pilot went for help two days after and I never saw him again," she replied, but not even talking about her friend death got her down.
I thought about what she said for a minute.
"Did you say computer?" I asked, looking at her very seriously, "can you fly without the landing gear?"
"I can, I suppose, why?" She asked quizzically.
"I'm a computer programmer! I can rewrite it from scratch!" I shouted excitably. How, in one and a million years could I have stumbled upon this? God tell me how!
"Oh no way!" She squealed, clasping her hands together, seconds later she was engulfing me into a hug.
"Ouch! Sunburn!" I hissed.
"Sorry," she said, smiling sheepishly. I unintentionally blushed, God she was just too cute.
Under the cover of darkness I began rewriting the computer automatic start up and auto pilot system, efficiently avoiding the sun. The more complicated systems would have to wait, because as every good programmer knows you have two hours of debugging for every hour of work.
Penny kept me company, cleaning up broken glass and looking over wiring harnesses while we chatted. She was really a nice girl, she was happy and optimistic, child like and very adultish at the same time. She was a perplexing paradox of joy, and I loved every second if it.
"I bet you have a cute boyfriend at home waiting for you Carrie," she just happened to mention on our third night of work, causing me to scoff.
"What, no prince on a white horse for you?" She asked, a hint of offense in her voice.
"I didn't mean it like that, uh, I guess I just like princesses better, get the drift?" I asked her, answering her in a very matter of fact tone. I watched her out of the corner of my eye shift a little bit like she was uncomfortable. She said something under her breathe then.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Me too," she practically shouted. I turned around then, intrigued by her sudden reaction. How interesting. She was tense, standing very stick straight and nervous, blushing like mad.
"Why do you ask?" I offered, she was trying to take this somewhere.
"Do you think, uh, when we get back to civilization I mean, uh, could we... Would you... Maybe we could go.." She trailed off, her poor face beat red. She starred down at her shoes the entire time. When had miss foreword lost her confidence? I couldn't help but smirk.
"You wanna go out on a date with me?" I tried finishing her sentence. She put her face in her hands and nodded furiously.
"I'd like that," I smilies, stifling laughter and not giving a second thought to how quickly this progressed.
It took me four nights to get the main operating systems operational and another two to debug and finish the job. By this time the plane was spotless, and ready for take off. Penny had dredged up some goggles to compensate for the lack of windshield, and she worried about the wind and possible flying projectiles, but we were hundreds of miles away from anyone that could replace the glass, so it would have to do.
"Ready?" I asked her, pulling her out of her nervous tangent about flight safety.
"I uh, oh, I suppose so," she sighed, a look of worry set deep into her features. Her fingers lingered over a large red button labeled 'power' for a moment, before they drew back, only an inch away from pressing it. I could tell she was terrified of crashing again, terrified of anything going wrong, and possibly of flying again, but we had to. This was the only means of escape.
Reaching over with my hand, I placed my fingers over top of hers and we pressed the button together.
Instantly the plane Sprung to life. Every system responded perfectly, even the stupid little signs that instructed us to put our seat belts on. Hensitantly, Penny began flipping switches, first the more mechanical systems, next the oxygen masks to make up for the altitude we'd be reaching, and finally the engines.
"Hold on to your butt," she muttered, pulling her oxygen over her face. I did the same as she gave the plane some serious gas. Dust kicked up so high and so thick it was difficult to see, without the face gear, I would have both suffocated and probably gone blind. The plane gave an enormous jerk and seconds later it began to creep foreword. Penny jerked back the control stick, forcing the planes swearing gear to angle itself upwards and she gave one last shot of gas to the engine. Now or never, get off the ground or burn out all our gas trying.
One last jerk sent us off into the desert, skidding and jumping until the wings stabilized and we began a quick, steady accent into the sky.
"Holy fuck!" I screeched, though it was impossible to hear myself so much as think over the shear wind noise. I was glad to have the co pilots head gear to keep the defining sound out. There were no clouds, no scenery, just the vast blue ocean of sky before us, leaving behind hell.
Two days ago I was laying in the middle of some dessert in who knows where, a day ago I was skidding to a stop on a fourin runway, nearly crashing into a 7-47 after our Nonexistent landing gear on our plane failed to activate, skidding to a halt, metal sparking and screaming and nearly catching what little gas we had left on fire. Twelve hours ago I slept in a real bed in a police station, an hour ago I was changing into some sort of cheep but clean clothing, and now I'm on a date with the girl that saved my life.
Admittedly, it was a bad time for a date, the officers were in and out asking us questions and the food was just horrible, greasy mcdonnalds, but we had Dixie cups and cheep wine and that was okay by our standards.
It's not every day you manage to rescue yourselves from a literal wasteland.
I swirled a particularly large french fry around in the ketchup, watching Penny sip her wine and made discussed faces at the taste of alcohol. I smiled to myself, she was still so cute.
"So uh, I was gonna ask you something," I said, very seriously after taking a drink of mu coke, "it's kinda risky."
She looked up quizzically and I cocked an eyebrow, pulling out a pen from and wrote some words on a napkin. It ripped with the harshness of the pen, but i kept at it, eventually slowly sliding it over to her.
'I want revenge on the son of a bitch who did this to me, would you help?' It read. I watched her eyes scan the words, and then again and then once more before she finally looked up.
"Why? You got away with your life, isn't that enough?" She asked.
"No, I want to know why and I want whoever it is to pay. I didn't spend two weeks terrified and nearly being eaten in the desert for nothing," I spat, not angry with her, and pulled up my sleeve and shirt to show her the coyote bites. She looked a little sad seeing them still so inflamed and infected, not to mention the sore looking tetanus is shot injection site.
"What do you want me to do?" She asked quietly, bowing her head.
"You don't have to," I noted, but she just shook her head.
"I do. We saved each other, where ever you go, I wanna go," she spoke in a low, slow tone. I instantly felt bad, like I was forcing her into this. She felt so attached that she was willing to do something illegal and possibly dangerous. It astounded me, I was sure she was going to say no. I supposed a year alone in the dessert with no hope of escape would do that to a person. She took the pen I'd used to write with and in her neat, curved writing asked 'are you going to kill someone?'
I nodded. She was unreadable for a moment and then she sighed.
"Okay."
A day later we'd emptied my savings account and spent it on a small two man air craft and a high quality pistol, now the only thing left to do was figure out just who it was I was after.
My combat boots clunked with every step I walked down the cold, wet alleyway. I hadn't been home, I hadn't had much chance to shower, and I was running on snacks from a poorly lit gas station to avoid being seen. If they wanted me dead, I'd still need to be dead to carry out this mission, and then again to disappear. Penny fallowed almost exactly in my foot steps, scrounging around this building like rats. We were waiting until after all the lights went out in this twenty story office building, not even the cleaning crew could see us.
"Carrie, they left," my partner in crime whispered as she appeared around the side of a brown brick building. I stopped short and turned to look at her. She dressed in a charcoal grey sweater, a medical mask pulled up over her face to hide her features. This was terribly cliche, but it never crossed my mind. I gave the signal, and we walked briskly to the back loading dock of the building.
I hacked the card scanner into letting us in, the door lifting just enough to let us squeak in, but that was enough. Our next step was to turn off the cameras. I put Penny on my shoulders and instructed her to cross some wires, frying the first camera and allowing us to pull the system wiring guts out of the wall and send the rest of them on the fritz for the next half hour. It wasn't a terribly long time, we had to get in, figure out our attack plan, and get out, quickly, or get caught and have our cover thrown.
We dashed up flights of stairs, panting, until we reached the sixth level, where my office used to be. We walked briskly down the third isle, stopping abruptly at the cubical that used to be mine.
"This is discussing," I muttered, seeing they'd already moved a new person into my office. I riled through his papers to find his new access code, logged on, and caught the company firewall to get into the files I was used to accessing.
Who ever was in change of erasing me had not done a good job. My email was still up and running and though all my work had been dumped, it had not been erased. It only took me a few seconds to find what I was looking for, the 'get rid if her' email.
"This is suspiciously sloppy," I told my now very nervous companion. Looking over for a second, I could see her switching from foot to foot, biting her nails and looking around like she expected to see someone bust us any second. On second thought my comment probably hadn't helped.
"Carrie, hurry, please," she whined, but I didn't answer her.
I tracked the email through four proxy servers, and then by ip address Until finding the original sender.
"J.P. Anders?" I mocked out loud. Who in the world was that? I ran the name though every data base I could think of before deciding I didn't have enough time for this.
"Penny, let's go." I said, dumping every one of the files for good pulling the mouse and keyboard from the computer. They had my finger prints on them and I couldn't risk being found. We flew down the steps, finding it much easier going down rather than up, skidded though the loading dock door and stashed the computer parts in a high trafficked restaurant dumpster down the street. We'd gotten away with it, but now what to do with the information?
Penny checked into a hotel with a fake name, and by the time we reached the room we were exhausted. Penny collapsed on the bed before she even said a word, burying her face in her elbow.
"Thanks for helping me," I mumbled, sitting down on the other side of the bed. When she didn't answer, I twisted around to see what she was doing. I couldn't hear anything, but the bed trembled under her. My eye brows furrowed and I puzzled over her for just a second before I realized she was crying.
"Oh Jesus Penny, it's okay, please don't cry," I stammered. Her anxiety about the mission had clearly gotten the best of her. She was tiny, fragile and less skilled at this than I was. I felt bad for her, mainly because this was all my fault.
"Penny, please," I choked, near tears myself, "please, it's okay. Go home to your family. Leave me here Penny, this isn't any good for you anymore."
"It's not that," she sobbed, her words almost unidentifiable, "it's not that at all."
"What is it then?" I asked. The younger woman swung around, wrapping her arms around me in a vice and fisting her hands in my shirt. She sobbed a few minutes longer until her cries finally died off into unpleasant sniffling.
"It's nothing," she assured, lifting her tear stained red face to look at me. I didn't believe her.
"It's just, um," she stammered again, and I watched her use blowing her nose as an excuse to to finish her sentence.
"It's just, um, well, im just like, afraid for you," she murmured, looking me in the eye as she spoke. She had the ghost of worry on her features, sad almost.
"I'm gonna be fine, don't even think about it okay? The only one dying around here is gonna be this J.P. Anders guy," I said, trying to laugh it off but she wasn't falling for it.
"I think I love you Carrie," she said so softly I didn't hear it until seconds later. She what?
She leaned in a little too close for comfort, her eyes pleading with me for something I didn't understand until it was too late. She kissed me, pulling my lips into a sloppy, inexperienced kiss that made me feel sort of like she was trying to eat my mouth. When she pulled away and saw my face, I thought she might cry again.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Carrie I shouldn't have done that," she spoke, tears welling up in her eyes.
"no, no, it's okay I'm not mad," I tried to soothe her, "this is just happening so fast i don't know what to say."
I heard her mumble something along the lines of "that was my first kiss," and instantly I felt worse.
"Here um," I mumbled, trying to get my self back together. I realized it was impossible seconds later resulting in crashing my lips into hers. She was probably as shocked with my actions as I was, but we were soon melting together into warmth and budding love. My lips worked over hers, trying hard to teach her, show her and kiss her all at the same time. My heart beat fast, skipping a beat when I finally pulled away. Her face was utterly unreadable.
"Could I ask you one more time to let this all go?" She asked, looking hopeful, but that wasn't an option I saw.
"Let's just go to sleep," I sighed, thinking I'd just made it worse. I laid down, my back to her and covered up. I'd made it a hundred times worse, or so I'd thought until she snuggled up beside me after shutting off the light.
"Good night," she murmured. I didn't reply, only sighed contently as I drifted off.
The next morning we'd checked out at dawn. The plan today was to sneak into the building and find the older files in the buildings top levels, ones that weren't computerized, and look for J.P Anders there. Discussed in pencil skirts, sun glasses and tight blouses, we fit right in with the older secretaries entering the building for their fruity little foreign cars, no surgical mask needed.
Once we were in, we rode and Elevator the the third floor from the top and began rummaging though file cabinets four feet high and six feet deep.
What I couldn't understand was why these files were alphabetized, but I hadn't found anything or anyone with the last name Anders.
"I found something!" Penny shouted, popping her head up over a separate cabinet. I rushed over, taking the minilla file folder from her. In big bold writing on the tag were the words I'd been searching for.
"Where'd you find this?" I asked, and she pointed to a bottom drawer. Opening it, I found it full of blank folders and a black sharpie. This was odd, like someone was either trying to hide this or was planting it for us to find. I'd been careful, how could someone really be on our tail?
Looking back to the folder, I opened it, and found it empty of papers, but full of writing. In the same large black letters 'find me in the pent house' was written on the back of the folder. There was only one thing left to do.
I drew my gun as I stood outside the doors to the top office. Penny stood behind me, ready to back me up if I needed it.
"Listen, if something happens, leave me here okay? I'll get out just fine, take my gun and run," i instructed, looking back at her and then back to the door. Just behind there was the man responsible for my attempted murder, just behind that door was my revenge.
"On three," I murmured.
"One," she whispered.
"Two," I added, and when she didn't finish, I screamed the third number at the top of my lungs, gun posed and ready to fire. I threw open the door and dashed in. I held my hands out straight, my eyes scanned the room for the target, but when I found none I turned in a complete circle. This was a trick.
"Carrie, I'm very, very sorry," Penny spoke, her cute, soft voice hard and timid. I heard a click behind me, the familiar click of a hand guns safety leaver turning. I spun around, only to find the adorable, tiny Penny with a gun not Unlike mine pointed at my chest. My mouth fell open.
"You double crossed me," I screamed, outraged. How? How could she play with my emotions and tell me she loved me, work with me, survive with me, and then screw me over?
"Let me explain," she tried, but I cut her off.
"Explain what? Explain your master plan and how your going to kill me for real this time? You told me you loved me, was that nothing? Penny I thought this was different, I thought that I," I bit back a sob, "I thought that I loved you too."
"Carrie! Stop! You don't understand!" She cried, throwing her hand gun to the side, "it wasn't supposed to be like this! This wasn't my call! I'm sorry Carrie, but you knew too much. This was all staged," She sighed, getting it together, and then proceeded to explain, from the beginning.
"The CIA is working with our company to take down a terrorist group in Russia. They thought your branch of the company knew too much, so they had me start getting rid of people. I didn't want too, but I had to, this was all staged, here was no Coyote, just an attack dog and some hallucinogenic cactus, there was no problem with the plane, you were just banging on a laptop for days. But do you know what wasn't staged?"
My hands trembled as she spoke, I couldn't have fired a straight shot to kill her if I'd wanted to.
"I fell in love with you, and I'm not sorry. Your so different from anyone else I'd ever meet, your tall, and cool, and smart, and it's so awesome how you just, you just figured this all out. Kill me if you want, but know that this isn't what I wanted to happen to you, but I wouldn't trade what happened to us for anything." She was panting as she finished. My brain was swimming in information.
"Penny isn't your real name is it?" I questioned. She shook her head.
"Not my first name, my real name is Jordan Penny Anders. I'm the company owner, Jaxson Strex, the name it says on all official papers isn't a real person," she informed me.
Finally, I lowered my gun. I couldn't kill her. Not after everything. She offered her pinkie finger on her right hand to me, smiling softly.
"Pinkie swear I'm telling the truth," she tried to soothe.
"Pinkie swear you won't try and kill me?" I echoed. She nodded and we crashed together in a tight hug rather than pinkie swearing. I loved this girl and she loved me.
"I hope you do realize, Carrie, that both of our lives are still in danger? Right this minute?" She asked into my shoulder.
"Yeah, we got bigger fish to fry," I sighed, breaking the hug and pickup up her gun to toss it to her. I held out my free and and she took it, and hand in hand we walked out, leaving our lake behind for larger seas, seas we'd face together.