Her feet hit the white glaring concrete of the rooftop. Drawing in her limbs she rolled forward and regained her feet and continued to run not skipping a beat. Her arms pumped like a drumbeat and the blood rushed loudly in her ears. She jumped onto a low block of a ventilator and hoisted herself onto the edge of another roof. She continued to run but was soon confronted with a tall chain link fence. She didn't stop running and merely jumped onto the fence and using her hands and feet pulled herself over the top. Landing on the other side in a crouch she stood and surveyed her surroundings. She was a medium tall Eurasian woman who looked to be in her early twenties, she had short black hair which came down to about 1 or 2 inches above her shoulders. She had blocky bangs that framed an angular face. Her eyes were a deep brown black and the right one was framed by a strange tattoo. It was black and surrounded her entire eye but beneath it two spike's, the first one shorter then the second the longer coming down to about her cheekbone. She was dressed in a black tank top with two white stripes down the side and white baggy cargo pants. The bottoms of the pants were tied tightly above her ankle with black twine. She had on red trainers with a separate place for her big toe. On her right arm she had a red fingerless glove and a black elbow guard. She also had a black tattoo reminiscent of a circuit board, which came from her shoulder and disappeared beneath the guard. She suddenly spoke "O.K. Merc, I'm here where's the bag" A voice replied in her ear "Its in the building in front of you on the 6th floor, once you got it head up to the roof and I'll tell ya where to go next". "Got it," she replied. Going up to a door in the side of the building she kicked it open. Running inside she found an elevator and punched the open button. The doors slid open and she stepped inside and selected floor six. The doors slid shut behind her and the elevator dinged its way upward and the doors opened on a slightly dusty room with old junk leaning against the walls. Hiding behind an old crate was a glint of yellow. Going over to it she pulled out a multi-tiered yellow bag with a long black strap. Throwing it over her shoulder she ran over to the stairs and began to climb. She soon came to a dead-end. She moved backwards a bit and the ran toward the wall and jumped. Her hands caught the end of a ventilator shaft and she pulled herself onto a small ledge. Kicking in the grille she crawled into the small rectangular metal tunnel. Her knees hit the metal and sent loud echo's bouncing around the walls. Suddenly the voice previously identified as Mercs sounds in her ear. "Hey Faith, get a move on! The blue's have got a lock on ya!" she swears, "Ok I'm almost out". As soon as the words leave her mouth the tunnel dead ends and there's a hole in the floor. Dropping through the hole she hits the floor and rolls, running as soon as she's on her feet. She heads for the stairs and in the background you can hear muffled shouts as the "blue's" close in. Reaching the top of the stairwell she kicks open the door and runs out onto the roof. "Merc, I'm on the roof! Where the hell do I go to drop this bag off?" Mercs voice come's on the speaker again. "Faith, Kreeg is near here hand it to him then hightail it out of there!" after he says this you see a small figure waving to you from a couple of roof tops over. She runs toward the edge of the roof where a couple of boards are piled over
a brick. She launches herself toward the next roof and rolls when she hits it. She is confronted with a pipe barring her way. Sliding under it she sees's a gap between rooftops coming up. There's a bill-board in-between the roof-tops and she jumps at it running sideways over its surface before jumping onto the roof again. She jumps and slides her way through several obstacles until she comes face to face with a tall wall. The man Kreeg is on the other side of the wall. Behind her the noise's of the blue's grow louder and louder. She turns and sees a pipe running up the wall to a small platform overhanging the other rooftop. She runs toward it and jumps using her arm and legs to shimmy her way up the pipe. When she reaches level with the platform she jumps toward it and catches it with her hands pulling herself up and over she continues to run jumping from the end of platform to the roof below. Looking up she see's a man who must be kreeg. He's around her age and has dark chocolaty skin. His black curly hair is shaved close to his head in a buzz cut and he is wearing a bright orange T-shirt and black sweatpants. He gestures to her frantically and she tosses the yellow bag to him. He shouts "Thanks!" and disappears over the edge of the roof. Mercs voice comes on again "Faith, get your ass out of there!" he says. "This frequency is swarming with blue's!" Faith runs toward the edge of the roof and jumps landing and rolling. All is going well as she slides and jumps until the loud thumping of a helicopter is heard and a police helicopter come's into view beside her. "Shit!" she swears. The helicopter opens fire on her and she looks for places to hide. Suddenly she yells and trips clutching her shoulder. One of the bullets found its mark. "Mercs voice come's on sounding worried "You O.K. Faith?" clenching her teeth Faith gets to her feet and replies "Goddamn helicopters, their aim is good" blood begins to trickle down from beneath her fingers. She starts to run again but less confidently her face white with pain. The helicopter follows close behind no longer shooting simply waiting until Faith loses consciousness to pick her off and bring her to jail. "Merc, can you find me away to get inside a building?" she stumbles again and swears. He replies "O.K. just hold tight for a couple seconds" she hides behind a water tank leaning her back against the metal and taking deep ragged breathes. Soon Mercs voice comes on again "Ok Faith I found a place, there should be a door a rooftop away from you, but there's a pretty big jump, think ya can take it?" standing up she replies "I have to try" She runs out of her hiding place and can see the door in the distance. She picks up speed as she approaches the large gap between buildings. She pushes with all her strength and reaches her good arm out to the edge of the building. But she lands to low and she slams into the wall with a thump. She falls unconscious to a ledge below and breaks through the flimsy wood structure, when she hits the metal platform below you can hear something snap. Mercs voice sounds through the small phone that had fallen out of her ear during the fall and now lay beside her head "Faith… are you there, Faith… Faith!" In a small room cluttered with computers and a coach and blankets a big muscular man swears. He looks to be about 5' 11" or so and has the broad muscled build of a football player. He has blonde hair shaved into a buzz even shorter the Kreeg's and has piercing blue eyes. He's wearing black slacks with double white stripes and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up high. He has red sweatbands around both wrists. You can see a red tee poking out from underneath the top of his shirt. The rolled up sleeves reveal tattoos similar to those Faith has on his right arm and mixed in with them I the same design Faith has around her eye. He stands up and begins to pace. You see that he has a shoulder holster on with a deadly looking gun underneath both arms. Just then another woman drops in through a round hole in the roof. She Looks a little older the Faith and has longish blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She's wearing black skinny jeans with a red belt around her waist. She has on black converse and has a tee-shirt/tank top with a v-neck. On her left arm is a wrist guard that goes up to just below her elbow and ends with a fingerless glove. She looks at the man and asks, "Where's Faith Merc?" Merc turns and says "She got shot while running away from a transfer, then she tried to make a jump that was to big for her. She fell." The woman's face whitened and she sucked in her breath. "Crap." She said in a low voice then turned saying "I'll go get her" Merc grabbed her arm "There is no way in hell I am letting you go out there, you guide me, I'll get her" the woman stared at him stubbornly "Celeste!" he warned. She sighed and said "Fine, but be careful and bring her back!" She stared him, waiting for a reply. "I will," he said, "I promise" then he hauled himself onto the roof. He ran toward the edge of the roof and jumped. Following Faiths footsteps. Finally he came to the place where Faith had handed the bag off too Kreeg. He said to Celeste "O.K. Cel, I got it from here, you keep an eye on those goddamn blues" Celeste's voice come's over the line "Roger that" he turns and runs toward where Faith took the jump. He can see the trail of blood left by her bullet wound, which brings him to a drop-off roof. Looking down over the edge he can see her lying on the metal platform where she fell. Looking around he see's a pipe that leads near where she is lying. Taking a step back he jumps and grabs onto the pipe sliding down it. When he reaches the level of the platform he digs his heels into the wall and when he stops jumps over to where Faith is. The bullet wound in her shoulder hasn't stopped bleeding so he tears a strip off his shirt and wraps it around her arm. As he's tying it off Faith wake's up. "Merc, is that you?" she mumbles groggily. "Hey Faith, you awake" she tries to sit up and winces making Merc push her back down 'Dammit Merc, you shouldn't be here! What if there's still blue's around!" he looks at her "Did you really think I'd leave you here?" she sighs and looks down "No…" "Exactly" he says. "Now lets get you out of here!" he reached down to give her a hand up when she said, "Merc, I think my legs broken." Looking down at her leg he swore. "O.K. this is going to make things tricky" reaching down he picked her up gently. She winced as her leg was bumped "Sorry" Merc said. He turned around. He pushed open the door with his shoulder and began a steady jog down the corridor. Just then Celeste said, "Get your ass's out of there guys, there are blue's everywhere!" Merc swore and said "Cel, Faiths leg is broken…" "Dammit!… ok, stay inside buildings and only go outside when you have to, there's a crapload of helicopters outside" Merc began to run faster. He took and elevator up to the top floor. He climbed the last flight of steps carefully so as not to jar Faiths leg. When he reached the rooftop he looked around a helicopter flew in low and as it approached them Merc jumped up and grabbed one of the bottom landing things. H managed to pull himself up and Faith up after him. "I just sure as hell hope that this helicopter goes where we're trying to go" he muttered. After a short while the helicopters pilot decided that he hadn't seen anybody and heads back to where the others are flying, luckily this is close to where Merc wants to go. The pilot begins to turn away and goes low and close to the rooftops as he swings around. Grabbing Faith Merc jumps from the bottom of the helicopter, resisting the urge to roll. He begins to run, his feet pounding on the concrete. He jumps up on a ventilator then wall climbs up to the roof. Then he slid down a pipe and run to a hole in the rooftop and slid into his hideout. He let Faith slip down from his back and laid her on the couch. Celeste came over just as Faith opened her eyes. "Wow!" said Celeste. "You look like crap!" as she took in Faiths bloody shoulder ripped clothing and messy hair. "You would to if you fell down three stories!" Faith replied. "Well I'm glad your ok" said Celeste. "Now this is all very heartwarming and tender but I would rather not have Faith bleed to death after I went to all that effort to rescue her!" interjected Merc as he came back into the room with a first aid kit. Celeste moved aside and Merc opened kit and took out iodine and gauze bandaging. He took off the messy wrapping he had done with his shirt and took a large cotton ball and swabbed the wound. Then he wrapped it in gauze and taped it so it wouldn't fall off. "You're going to have to see a doctor about put away the supplies. "Maybe Kate knows a good doctor" mused Faith. "A good private doctor." Said Celeste. "Oh god, I'm going to have to explain this to Kate" Faith said. "That's going to be fun" Celeste snickered. Just then Merc comes back into the room "Faith, what made ya take that jump!" Merc exclaimed. "You knew you couldn't make it!" Faith sighed and said "What was I supposed to do Merc? There were blues behind me and on both sides! The only way to go was forward!" Merc shook his head and said "I'm not finished with you yet but get some rest. We'll talk about this in the morning". Then he turned to Celeste "You should get home Cel" she nodded "See ya in the morning Faith, Merc" and disappeared out of the hole. In the morning after a lecture from Merc Faith decides to call Kate and tell her about the accident. She called over to Merc who is sitting at the computer "Hey, can you patch me in to Kate?" he looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. "Sure." After a short crackling in Faiths ear her sisters voice came on "Hello, this is Kate Conners speaking." "Hey sis" replied Faith. "Oh Hi Faith, are you O.K.? you don't sound so good!" Faith sighed "About that. I kind of had an accident…" a sharp intake of breath was heard on the other end of the line. "Faith! Are you ok? You can't keep doing this!" "I'm ok, I only fell cause I got shot by one of your friends!" Faith said angrily. "Look, they're not my 'friends', I just work with them! And anyways, you got shot!" "It's not that bad, just in the shoulder. About that, do you know a good doctor? I kinda also broke my leg…" "Faith! Well… I do know a doctor who treats runners for cheap. I'll give you his address." "Thanks! Bye" "Bye… be careful" Faith heard a click as Kate hung up on the other end of the line. She sighed. She hated getting hurt. It was really boring.
a month later
Faith smiles and stretches as she walks out onto the roof. She then runs forward and jumps off the roof. As she's tumbling throught the air Mercs voice buzz's in her ear "O.K. Faith, back to training. I know you hate it but that fall put you out of commission for a while and now you're back you gotta keep sharp. Anyways check out our new training ground! Pretty sweet huh?". As she hits the grounds she rolls and comes to a stop and stretches. A faint smile reaches her lips and she breathes in the cool air. She was going to run again.
