This story is set a few years after the Mirror's Edge game(s). In this version of Mirror's Edge, it's teenagers that are the main Runners. I might make this a one-shot, or I might not. No Faith. Sorry!
PS - Some things will be a different. Technology is always changing, so there will be a few quirks in this.
Disclaimer - Mirror's Edge is not mine.
Chance
"Welcome to the News!"
"Hi, everyone! My name is Britney, and I want to win the lottery!"
"Today's weather will most likely be slight rain with heavy clouds the next morning-"
"Are you ready to fight!"
The voices of the advertisement boards yelled at me as I passed by them, their computer automated voices asking me for silly things. Even the sound of my sneakers weren't enough to block out their sounds. They were loud, since all their attention was down in the traffic way below me, but all I kept focusing on was the voice in my head. Everything was silent, until I felt the other side come in through heavy static.
"All right, girl. Take a sharp left as soon as you get to the roof I pinpointed," Dexter said, his static voice ringing in my headphone. Pressing my thumb and index finger together, my side of communication opened.
"Can you at least tell me what I am getting, Dex?" I asked him.
"Hold on, girl. You need to just focus," Dexter replied, his voice becoming testy. "I don't even know what we're looking for. All I know is that it's in the roof I assigned you to go. Look, it's right in front of you."
"Understood," I said. I pressed my legs further to go faster. As I was nearing the edge of the opposite roof, I slammed my left foot against the hard white concrete and pushed my whole body away from it. Arms flailing, legs stretching to get to the other side, the entire city seemed hushed, as if it was anticipating whether or not I would make it. My vision seemed too clear as I saw the other roof just a few inches away. I was almost there, when I began to sink.
"Kate!" Dexter yelled in the headphone. My heart racing, I instinctively let my right hand stretch out. The pain of feeling hard concrete slapped against my right hand was a relief. I wasn't going to be pancake just yet. Then I heaved myself onto the roof, cracking the knuckles of my right fist afterwards. I smiled to myself, because now I had a nice life-or-death story to tell everyone back at headquarters. Suddenly, my right hand felt as if flames were licking it.
"I think I sprained it," I said, wincing when my fist answered back in pain as I opened it.
"Ignore it. You have to get whatever the headquarters needs from this company. I'll give you a safer route, though it will take longer. Does that sound good?" Dexter said. I could hear his fingers typing away at his keyboard. Ignoring the pain flaming up from my right hand, I grunted in approval before setting foot on the edge of the roof's building. I let my arms rest on the metal rail as I gazed at my home.
It was around over a hundred feet, the sounds of traffic droning constantly below it. The building was the third tallest architecture in New York City. It was mighty fine- looking too, if you looked at it during the day. Sleek tinted glass walls encased this building's secrets, with flashing lights of the advertisement boards flashing off of it, and soft whirring of small cameras at every corner, made my energy buzz with excitement.
The whirring of helicopters filed my ears, along with the sounds of civilians talking to each other face to face or through some fancy cell. Then I hopped on the rail and stayed there like a cat, perching herself to see her magnificent territory. It felt good to be above all the loud noises and observe them from above. It made me feel free.
When I had first come to New York to be "rehabilitated", I thought it was a utopia. I thought that the civilians were good hearted people, the food delicious, and the rules and laws just. But I was wrong. I found out the truth, and I saw that all of it was all lies. Once, New York City was great, filled with some problems, yes, but still alive. Now, thanks to our enemy, it was dead, filled with fake smiles, fake love, and false freedom.
I hated what had happened to this place, and I was willing to change it back to the way it was.
"Kate, here are your coordinates," Dexter said, interrupting my thoughts.
A cold wind blew through me. I shivered and stood up from my place and skimmed over all the new coordinates. A holographic version of the tall building showed in front of my eyes, though nobody would see it but me. On the top of the roof was an Alpha symbol, showing I was there. On the seventy-fifth floor, an Omega symbol was blinking at me. I blinked, and the floor the Omega symbol covered appeared so close I almost felt as if I was inside of it.
"This floor here contains the package headquarters wants," Dexter explained. A blinking red dot appeared in the center of the floor. "It will take you a little while, since you will be using the stairs." The stairs were then highlighted in green.
"Uh, what? How about the elevators instead, Dexter?" I replied. I needed a lot of energy if someone caught me. Taking the stairs would tire me out. Besides, who ever used the stairs in this century?
"Don't be a sissy. You'll be using the stairs to go downstairs," Dexter snapped.
"But, Dexter, what about-"
"Stop holding up, Kate! Just do your job! I didn't give up playing my RPG just to hear you whine," Dexter yelled. He took a deep breath before saying, "Look, I know this is strange, being called in the middle of the night to do something like this. Hopefully, we'll get some answers from headquarters soon."
"Jeez, all right," I mumbled. "Geek."
"Hey!" Dexter protested. "Just go, man."
I turned away from the bright lights of my home, rolling my eyes when Britney screamed, "I won! I won!" Then, I ran towards the only door on the roof, and slammed my arm and side against it. The door was ripped off from it's hinges and loudly clattered itself to the floor.
The tattoo on my right arm flashed in my sight. Thanks to my specialized vision, nobody but me could see the multiple colors changing on my tattoo. My array of downy soft looking clouds were flashing green in my eyes. I was on the right track.
I jogged through the hundredth floor, the white walls and floors coming to me in jagged turns and sharp drops to the stairwells. The cameras that would have caught me and ended my mission were frozen and unable to record new film except for those of a few seconds ago, all thanks to Dexter. My whole body seemed to jump at the sight of every number that appeared every few seconds on the stairwell. I bet even Dexter was anxiously counting down the numbers with me as well.
"There!" Dexter exclaimed before I could. "This is it, Kate. Just give me a second to decipher the password."
"Do you really think they'll promote us, Bob?" a distant voice asked. I slipped into the darkness, my heart beating rapidly.
"Of course, Robert. Remember, we arrested those Runners last week. Teenagers these days! They think they can do everything because they can jump across buildings," another voice said, chuckling afterwards. My mind went back to Runners. Were they holding my friends hostage? That never happened before. What were they doing to them? Anger flashed through me. I had to go and save them.
"All right, Kate. You can open the door now," Dexter said. I grabbed onto the doorknob and let myself in. I pressed my thumb and index finger together, opening my communication line.
"Dexter, I think they're holding Runners hostage here. Check the building again and see where they might keep them," I ordered.
"Copy," Dexter replied immediately, his tone suddenly very serious.
"So, what am I supposed to take?" I asked, my voice very hushed as the two voices mingled past the door I was hiding myself behind. I craned my neck to the side, and saw police badges. I was this close into having a surprise meeting with the police force. The two cops walked past me, not noticing me dashing towards the office desk a few feet in front of me.
The desk was of some dark sleek-looking metal, with a laptop on the right. The walls and floors were bright red, as was my tattoo, indicating I was on X marks the spot. Papers were strewn across the paper. A small lamp was all the light in the room. I felt my breath catch as I waited for my partner's answer.
"It's on the desk, upper left cabinet."
Keyboards being punched came from the other line.
"Kate, this place is holding Runners hostage. Their trackers are all together in the same room. They're right below you! You need to get them out of there, Kate," Dexter ordered.
"Copy," I said. Slowly, I opened the upper left cabinet of the desk, and found a small messenger bag, one that you just strap onto your back and move easily with. This was Runner equipment. We would use this to carry packages to and from our missions. On the inside of the bag, there was even a name; Emily. I snatched it and clamped it onto my back, then hurried myself out of there.
I went down another case of stairs, adrenaline pumping into my system so loudly I could hear it rhythmically pulsing in my ears. Dexter quickly decoded the password, and I took in a deep breath before opening the door.
"Kicking Kate!" the three Runners exclaimed. They were all tied up in rope, the three put into a far corner of the room. They all looked tired, as if they had been awake all night. Their arms had rope burn on their wrists from them struggling to break away from the tight rope that binded them to each other in their metal chairs. What was worse, though, were their faces. They had cuts and bruises patterned across their skin, like tribal tattoos. The tattoos that marked them as Runners seemed to blend in with the bruises. "Shh. I'm busting you all out of here," I whispered. I took out a laser pen and turned it on. The red laser beam burned the tied ropes, and in seconds, my friends were free.
"Kate," said one of them, "the city is doing something. We found out about it, but they caught us."
"We will talk about it later. For now, let's get out of here."
The Runners rubbing their wrists and ankles, I turned to Dexter for more information.
"Dexter, I have the Runners with me," I said to him. "What do you want me to do now?"
"Um, how about run?" Dexter suggested. "One of the cameras caught you before I froze all of them, and the alarms are going to go off in-"
"All officers go to floor seventy-four. Runners have been spotted," a woman's voice announced. "All officers go to-"
"Let's get out of here!" a tall boy yelled, and we all sprinted out of the room. That was when the cops showed up. The floors seventy-six and up were covered with cops pointing their guns and tasers at us. Their faces were hidden behind black masks, only their eyes showing. They came in groups of four or seven, multiplying themselves on the stairs.
"You are under arrest!" a cop said through a bull horn. "Put your hands behind your head! Do not run, or we will shoot you!"
Now, you might be thinking, "Wait, they are teenagers! You can't shoot them!" They can. Runners are kids who have broken the law, disengaged themselves from family, and even removed their own registration forms that allowed them to be citizens of New York. Cops had no problem disciplining us Runners, especially with guns to provide backup.
We Runners bolted away before the bullets could get us. We went into floor seventy-three, and ran across the hallway to the elevator. Our tattoos were screaming the color blue. It meant that the authorities were nearby. A girl Runner with blond curls came up beside me as the elevator doors closed. She had symmetrical flower pattern tattoos branded onto her fair skin. I saw her many times at headquarters. Her name was Emily.
"Thanks for saving us, Kate," she said. "Do you know the coordinates to get out of here?"
"No. Dexter was too slow. So we're going to wing it," I responded.
"All right. Can I have my bag back?" Emily asked, pointing to the messenger bag. I clipped it off of my back and gave it to her. She let go a breath I thought she was holding forever as she clipped it onto herself.
All three free Runners tensed as the elevator door began to go down ten floors. As soon as the elevator pinged and the doors opened we ran out of there, avoiding a volley of bullets that broke the glass walls. A Runner boy with fair hair yelped when a shard of glass scratched his cheek. He let himself slow down to pick out the shard of glass from his face.
"Keep running!" I ordered. I pressed my legs to go farther. My team panted as we began running through thick walls the cops would not be able to destroy. We were still not safe, though. The cops would be coming through the elevator doors soon, and we would all be doomed. And I made things even worse by making us run into a dead end. Blue mocked itself on my tattoos as I began wondering what I should do next.
"What now?" the tall Runner questioned, sweat sliding down from his face.
"The vent!" the fair haired boy exclaimed, pointing towards the vent just inches up from me, blood running down his pale face. I backed up, then ran. Jumping up at the last second, I grabbed onto the ledge of the vent and heaved myself in. Then Emily, the fair haired boy, and the tall boy went in. Crawling on our knees, I almost hit my head on the metal wall when Dexter's voice broke in.
"Kate, there's no way I can help you now. You and the other Runners are going to hit the edge of the building, where this vent leads off to nowhere except down," Dexter said. My partner seemed very scared at what he was telling me. "You will all have to slide down and make it to the neighbor building. Are you up to that?"
"If it's all we can do, Dex," I responded, but then, something happened. Static erupted from the other side, and my line with Dexter was cut off. The cops messed up the frequency and cut me off from Dexter!
When I reached the end, I stepped out and cautiously went over to the ledge. Beneath me was nothing but the inclined plane of sleek glass. I saw the building Dexter told me about, but it seemed so far away. My heart seemed to constrict in fear. How was I going to make it? I was one of the most experienced Runners, but experience won't always save me. Dex would tell me what else to do, but he was gone. Soon, the three Runners joined me.
They weren't scared as I was, though. They had determination written on their faces, boldness set firmly in their shoulders and backs. The Runners were ready to take the risk. The tall Runner looked at me and smiled. Then he said;
"Before we all fall to our deaths, I'd like to introduce myself. My name's Ian. I come from the Betta Project."
"Hi, Ian," we chorused at him. Then we all burst into laughter. It was insane, acting like the normal teenagers we usually saw down in New York's streets, but that is a trait Runners have. We're all crazy. Soon after Ian introduced himself, Emily spoke of herself, along with the fair haired boy Danny, Emily's twin brother. Fear was wiped away from their eyes. Not even the mocking blue on their tattoos seemed to faze them.
Their bravery inspired me. I straightened myself up and looked at them one last time.
"Let's go!" I yelled, and I landed on the hard glass.
I slid on my side, my pants rubbing against my skin like a rash. The three Runners joined me, their faces lighting up from adrenaline rushes and the wind slapping them. Then, we were all in mid air, arms flailing like spaghetti, legs kicking wildly, hair being blown back. Emily let out a shout. Danny and Ian howled to the moon. My feet were only a few inches away from the hard concrete roof I had just scaled on to make it into the tall building. Would I make it?
Ian landed first, rolling himself into a ball before unrolling and bolting himself out of there. Danny and Emily came next. I knew all three would be fine; the cops would be too busy searching for them in the building. All three would grab onto a pipe, climb it, then hop onto a roof and escape. Would I do the same?
"Holy-!" A cop popped out of the vent I was in just a few seconds ago. I knew his eyes would be like huge saucers at the sight of me in mid air. Still, would they be able to see me make it to the other roof?
With the chances of me being too far away, and the cops aiming their weapons at me as a helicopter turned it's light on my back, we would see.
Hope you all enjoyed it!