"Thank you for flying Mizuno International Airlines. Please have a safe and productive visit and enjoy your stay in Neo Hong Kong." The melodious male voice broadcasted itself over the airport's speakers before repeating his message in Mandarin.
As the doors of the busy terminal slid shut behind her, Hana Tsu-Vaschel dropped her duffel bag and backpack back to the ground and released a long sigh of relief. "Finally!"
Beside her, Rain Qin dropped a second duffel bag and stretched, various body parts popping audibly as she lifted her arms over her head. She groaned with relief. "Gods! I thought that would never end." She smiled at Hana. "I think we need another vacation."
"A vacation from our vacation?"
"Hey, why not?" She kicked Hana's duffel bag. "It's not like we can't afford it."
Hana scooped the bag up before Rain could kick it again. "First, we've got to be paid, and Yung won't pay us if you damage Gurlovich's head before I get it to him."
Rain glared at the bag. "Speaking of which, you should get going, before our little 'souvenir' starts to smell."
Hana looked at her blonde partner, a smile teasing the corners of her lips. "Don't you want to come with me?"
Rain's expression made Hana's smile widen. "I am going home," she said sternly. "It's going to take me forever to get the reek of blood out of our clothes." Picking up her own duffel bag, she stalked towards the line of waiting taxis.
Hana grinned to herself.
It was good to be home.
Fear Effect: Retribution
A Fear Effect fanfic
By Kristin Renee
Taylor
Part One -
It was supposed to have been a peaceful, relaxing vacation: five days and four nights of sunshine, sand and surf in the always pleasant Hawaii. They'd go horseback riding. They'd hang glide. They'd make every man (and a few women) insanely jealous.
What they got were ninjas. Lots of ninjas. Lots and lots of Russian ninjas.
Five days of fun had turned into twenty-seven hours of frantic swordfights, hostage negotiations, and a lot of ass-kicking before the leader, a weird little man named Gurlovich, finally fell off the roof of a building and broke his neck. Hana had bagged the head, and immediately she and Rain had returned to China to collect the sizable bounty.
Yung was her new liaison with the Triad and was infinitly less slimy, much younger, and much more handsome than Jin had ever been. He always dressed sharply, in black suits, and he had a sharp ruthless attitude that even Hana had to admit was unusual for a Triad member. When she met him at his office, Yung had stared at the bloody head Hana had plopped onto his table. He had stared at her while she recounted her story. And then he had said, "You've got to be shitting me. What kind of stupid-ass crimelord uses Russian ninjas?"
There was a reason why Hana liked the man.
But, that had been hours ago. Now, a couple of hundred thousand dollars richer, Hana was ready to take a long shower and crash headlong into bed. She didn't want to get up for a week.
As she unlocked the door to her apartment, she thought 'And what the hell were Russian ninjas doing in Hawaii, anyway?'
The apartment she and Rain shared was new; they had moved out of their old place after the unpleasantness of last New Year's. (It was more like they had been kicked out, but whatever.) Their new place, a spacious two-bedroom suite, lay closer to the center of the city, in a tall skyrise overlooking the downtown shopping district and offering an incredible view of Neo Hong Kong's skyline.
In the small entryway, Hana dropped her backpack next to Rain's duffel bag. She could hear the shower running, and the steady hiss of water muffled what might have been a radio.
"And she says I take too long," Hana muttered as she entered the suite proper. "Figures." She crossed the living room, towards the bathroom. "Rain! If you've used up all the hot water-" Hana grasped the handle of the door and threw it open.
A cloud of steam billowed out, briefly obscuring Hana's sight. Grimacing, she stepped into the overly moist bathroom, fumbled around, and flicked off the radio. Rain's clothes and underwear were in a pile on the floor, but Rain herself wasn't present. Puzzled, Hana cut off the water and walked back into the living room.
"Rain?" In the sudden silence, her voice sounded odd.
Something wasn't right here.
Rain had draped her jacket over the back of the couch. The door to the second bedroom, long since converted into Rain's computer room, was open. One of Rain's computer monitors was on, displaying a moving blob for a screensaver. Hana couldn't see the kitchen from where she stood. The door to the main bedroom, which she and Rain shared, was closed
Hana went to the door and stopped, eyes narrowing, breathing deeply. There was something there, a vague but familiar scent that alarmed her. Gripping the doorknob with one hand, she pulled a .44 custom-made handgun free of its shoulder holster and flicked the safety off.
She shoved the door open, sweeping gun and eyes across the room in a single practiced movement.
Blood. It was everywhere: the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Gallons of blood thrown everywhere, painting every surface a slick wet sheen. More blood than a human body could have possibly provided. The smell of it clogged the air, making Hana gag, and she hastily blotted her eyes as they begin to tear up.
She surveyed the room again, her mind noting other details that she had missed: her closet had been ransacked, clothes lay strewn across the floor in small crimson piles. Rain was on the bed. Lamps had been thrown against the walls hard enough to bust holes in the dry-
The hair lifted off the back of Hana's neck.
Rain lay at the center of an ocean of bloody sheets, pale, unmoving and naked. Her ankles and wrists were tied to the bedposts. Her head was bowed, blonde hair matted with blood covered her face.
She wasn't breathing.
'Oh no. No. No, Jesus God, NO!'
"RAIN!" Dropping her gun, Hana scrambled onto the bed, oblivious to the blood she got on her clothing. Desperately, she searched Rain's body, and nearly collapsed with relief at the weak but steady pulse in Rain's throat.
Alive...
A large bruise mottled the left side of Rain's face, along her temple. As Hana untied her, she groaned thickly, but didn't regain consciousness. Hana wrapped her in a clean sheet from the utility closet and gently carried her to the living room couch. Then she returned to the bedroom.
Aside from the blood and the ruined clothes, everything else in the room seem to be untouched. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing of value was missing. Even Hana's backup arsenal, hidden under a false panel in the closet floor, was untouched.
No, not untouched. Someone had rummaged through it. One of her guns, a 9mm that she no longer used but kept in case of an emergency, had been loaded and replaced. Holding it in her hand, frowning to herself, Hana ejected the clip and checked it.
Seven bullets.
Her eyes narrowed. It couldn't be...
"...Hana..?"
Her head snapped up. A moment later, she was at Rain's side. "Rain, are you okay? How do you feel?"
Rain was sitting up, one hand pressed to her forehead as she grimaced in pain. "Head hurts. Room spinning." Blue eyes focused slowly on Hana's concerned face. "What happened?"
"From the look of it, someone attacked you. Do you remember anything?"
Rain closed her eyes. "Got home... Cut the shower on..." She started to shake her head, and halted the motion almost immediately. "The rest is a blur." She opened her eyes. "I'm sorry."
Hana squeezed her hand. "Don't be." Standing, Hana went to the kitchen. She drew a glass of water, retrieved a bottle of aspirin, and walked back to Rain. "Here. This'll help." While Rain drank, Hana sat next to her. "I hope you've got some clean clothes left."
When Rain glanced at her, Hana explained the condition of their room.
"Great," Rain said. She leaned her head against the couch and sighed. "Who the hell did we piss off this time?"
"I don't know. But, when I find him, he'll wish he had never been born."
"Oh, I am not cleaning this up." Arms folded, showered and dressed in a pair of nearly clean clothes, Rain glared at the mess that was their bedroom. "This is ridiculous."
"Well, we could always move again."
Rain directed her glare through the doorway, where Hana leaned against the far wall of the hallway. "We just got here. We haven't been here five months!"
Hana shrugged and smiled.
"This is serious, Hana. Someone broke into our apartment and tried to kill me!"
Hana's smile vanished. She straightened and walked into the bedroom. "Nobody 'broke' in here, Rain. The lock on the door wasn't forced, none of the windows show signs of tampering, and the alarm was disabled. Whoever got in here not only had a key, but they knew a shitload about us.
"And this-" She gestured around the room. "-is a warning. If they had wanted you dead, you'd be dead."
Rain let her arms drop. "Who did this, Hana? And why?"
Hana shook her head. "I don't know... You don't remember anything?"
"I got home. I walked into the bedroom to get my robe, and then everything becomes a big red blur."
"What about your computer?"
Rain gave Hana an odd look. "What about my computer?"
"You cut it on, didn't you?"
Rain frowned. "I told you, I came home and got my robe. I never even touched-" She broke off.
They stared at each other, then, as one, bolted for Rain's computer room.
Rain slipped into the chair, fingers flashing over the keyboard as she deactivated the screensaver and examined her files. Hana, standing behind her, said, "Well?"
Rain frowned. "Everything seems fine... doesn't look like anything's been tampered... wait... Something's been uploaded." She accessed the file. "It's a movie." She looked at Hana meaningfully.
Hana folded her arms. "Play it."
Rain hit a key.
The screen went black. Quickly, the darkness was replaced by their bedroom. Rain's attacker had already ransacked the room: blood was everywhere. Rain lay sprawled on the bed. The footage was slightly grainy, and had the appearance of being filmed on a cheap video camera. The angle of the shot put the camera just above the bedroom door.
The timestamp at the bottom of the screen dated the shot at an hour ago, twenty minutes before Hana had arrived home. She had missed running into Rain's attacker by minutes.
Abruptly, the shot begin to play, but in reverse.
A man appeared, entering the shot from somewhere beneath the camera. Large and muscular, wearing a bulky trenchcoat, he moved in such a way as to keep his face turned away from the camera, affording Hana with only the occasional glimpse of a broad nose and a chiseled jaw. He carried two buckets and, as they watched, the blood on the ceiling and walls leapt off the surfaces and flowed into the buckets. In moments, the bedroom was free of blood. With the blood gone, the man turned to their belongings. Clothing flew into drawers. Drawers returned to dressers. Shelves magically regained their contents unbroken. Hana and Rain's wardrobe re-hung itself.
Hana said, "And you slept through all of this?"
"Considering that I had just been concussed, you're lucky I woke up at all." But, Rain's voice was distracted. She was squinting at the screen.
The man turned his attention to the bed and Rain. He untied her. From somewhere he produced clothing and begin to dress Rain, making no effort to hide his occasional groping. Hana's eyes narrowed furiously. "That bastard."
Rain inhaled sharply, but for an entirely different reason. "Hana, that's not a timestamp."
On the screen, the man picked Rain up and carried her off-screen. He returned almost immediately, holding a black box the size of an alarm clock. He turned, faced the camera fully.
Rain spun, eyes wide. "That's a timer!"
Hana looked at her. "What?!" She snapped her gaze back to the screen, just in time to see the man hold the box up to the camera. He was holding a digital readout. Eight seconds were left.
"RUN!" Hana shouted.
End, Part One.
Hana, Rain, Glas, and everything Fear Effect are owned by... er... well, they were created by Stan Liu. Andrew McNorton is the intellectual property of Kristin Renee Taylor and, to my knowledge, wasn't ripped off somewhere else. This story is copyright 2004. Plagiarism sucks.
This Has Been a Production of Blueberry Enterprises.
