Hey all! I almost lost this chapter to the sands of time. The file I had on backup was incomplete. Nine years ago I put this, and a few other fanfics at the end of a book I wrote. Those files were also lost, but before they were, I made a PDF of it and put it online. THAT file was deleted online, but was backed up on a cd, one of about twenty that I kept in a sandwich bag during my homeless years. It is from THAT cd that I found the PDF from which I extracted the text for this.
Good thing, too, because I doubt I would have been able to write it again.
Mortal Athena
Chpt. 4. The Storm of Angels
June 1, 1985; Washington D.C.
In a smoke filled room far below the activity of the living sat three men dressed in black, their identities unknown, faces cloaked in shadow, deciding the fates of those they controlled.
"She'll never agree to it."
"We're not going to ask her."
"So she is expendable?"
"It's for a greater good."
"Decided by who?"
"Her country."
June 13, 1985; San Francisco
"Ach! I can't take it anymore!" Carmen exclaimed.
"What's wrong? Nothing in there you like?" Nigel replied. They had been leafing through the bridal gown catalogue for nearly an hour now.
"Me? It's just.. I just can't picture myself in such dresses."
"Excited?"
"No. It's that I don't especially like wearing frilly things."
"Not even on your wedding, Carmen?" Asked the chief over her shoulder.
"Well, I suppose I'll have to."
"Oh Carmen, you have to pick something. July 15th is only a month from now!"
"Hush! Both of you!"
The room lapsed back into silence, broken only by the sound of pages turning and the dissatisfied sighs of Carmen. She had changed a lot in the past few months. She was more cheerful now, made more jokes, and even laughed. The stern, cold Carmen had melted away with the prospect of her new life. Liberated woman that she was, in the back of her mind, Carmen yearned for the fifties mentality, to settle and start a family. Normalcy. Stability.
Not that life would become dull. Carmen was already planning to teach her children to fly the family helicopter. It was that now she had a real family. Aside from the fact that she and Jay didn't really get along, Nigel's parents adored her, and now she would have a real last name.
She had running all her life to catch the train of dreams, running alongside it as long as she could remember, reaching but never grabbing on. The constant running had worn down her soul, the tripping and falling, the scrapes and burns she had endured to keep up, not ever wanting the train to slip from her sight. She couldn't give up. It was now so close, for she had been gaining on it since Christmas Eve. Now so exhausted, she was as a marathon runner who could at long last see the finish line, giving all the last of her energy, one last burst of speed. July 15th she could grab on and let the train whisk her away to a new life. She would lie exhausted on the floor, her fight against fate over, and sleep for the first time. It would be the best sleep she ever had.
Carmen couldn't get this happy thought out of her head. 'Things don't get better than this.'
Suddenly a phone call broke the silence. Eager for something else to do, Nigel hopped up and answered it.
"It's for you, Carmen."
Carmen got up from the pea-green couch and walked over to the phone on the wall beside the row of newly updated computers. Only a few knew how to work them, Carmen being one of them. They provided her much enjoyment.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Armani?"
The man spoke with rough, monotonous voice, speaking slowly and pausing for the effect. Carmen didn't like those who veiled themselves in secrecy. She liked to know everything.
"Who is this?"
"Captain Walker of the FBI. I have called to make you aware that serial killer Valentino Mar has been arrested."
"He has? That's wonderful!"
"Yes, we thought it fair to tell you first, seeing as he had the tendency to single you out. All we need you to do now is do inventory on the bust in Hong Kong. Do you accept?"
"Yes. Good day."
"Good day...Ms. Armani."
*click*
Carmen hung the phone, drinking in the goodness of knowing this one thing. Nothing else mattered for the moment. Even more so, it helped to verify a happier new life with Nigel. Carmen tossed the great weight off her shoulders and walked back to the couch with a smile.
"What was that?" asked the chief
"Mar's arrested."
"What! Oh happy day! But..ah..why did they call just you?"
"Because I have to do inventory work tomorrow in Hong Kong. Evidentially Mar had a drug bust and I have to weigh the evidence."
"You know, Carmen", Nigel cut in, "Seeing as Suhara's sick, perhaps I might come along?"
"As my partner?"
"That was the general idea, yes."
"But you don't understand field work. You only do forgeries and embezzlement. Paper work."
"Oh Carmen! It's a low security assignment. He can go." Replied the chief
"Oh goody! I get to go on a trip! Wheeee!" Exclaimed Nigel with mock enthusiasm and jumped up from the couch. "And a plane!"
He pranced out of the room.
"You're rubbing off on him." Carmen said to the chief.
"Is that good or bad?"
"I guess I could live with it."
"Why thank you, Carmen."
"You're welcome."
Carmen sighed and walked out of the room, leaving the chief to his thoughts.
"They're just perfect together." He said to the empty room, then resumed his work.
June 14, 1985; San Francisco Airport.
"If you don't mind, Carmen, might I take the window seat?" Nigel asked.
"Why?" Asked Carmen, who really preferred the window seat for herself.
"Well you see, I get air-sick and I might just..er..um" Nigel stammered
"There is no polite way to say "throw-up", Nigel"
"Well, that was the word I was looking for, and if you don't want on you, you might consider surrendering your throne for one trip."
"What happens if we have an aisle seat?" Carmen asked, a little amused.
"I'll ask them to switch seats."
"If they can't?"
"Then I'll..ah..oh I don't know!"
Carmen chuckled to herself.
"Well you bloody well won't think it's funny when I..ah.."throw-up" on you!"
"Oh Nigel, you'll be fine."
The two got on the plane, Nigel receiving the window seat, Carmen beside him. As the plane began to take off, Carmen could feel him squeezing her hand for dear life.
'My, what a detective you would make.' She thought with a smirk. 'I guess if I'm getting a family helicopter, it's going to be with my own money.'
She leaned back and pushed her hat forward, a habit she had picked up from watching Indian Jones, and fell asleep.
June 14 1985, Hong Kong.
"Come on, Nigel! You need to travel light! And they say women are bad."
Nigel was lugging a huge suitcase behind him down the brightly lit corridors of the airport; Carmen wearing only a knapsack. The two made way to their rental car and stopped in the hotel for a quick brush up, then got back in the car and started for the address she had written down the day before.
Nigel looked happily out the window of the car, glad to be out of San Francisco and somewhere new.
'Ah Carmen! My love, we've had our differences, but none of that matters now. The children and the cats wandering around our big house on Nob Hill, why, I've already a down payment on it! Things will be so wonderful.'
Nigel sighed. 'I'm so glad she loves me.'
They pulled up to the loading dock 64 at precisely 11:30. Carmen always liked to be on time. They exited and walked towards it, Carmen a few steps ahead as usual, for her legs were longer and she walked with speed anyway. Nigel jogged a little to keep up. The warehouse yard was unusually quiet, for Hong Kong, but Carmen noted it and passed it off.
Nigel was getting excited now, for he was chattering away about his favorite composer. His pace quickened and overtook Carmen as she headed for the door.
"So as I was saying, they're going to hold a concert in Sydney Opera house and-"
Carmen saw a glint in the door but it was too late.
"Nigel!"
The shot rang out across the world, over the past and future, and other dimensions beyond them. Carmen watched in dream-like horror as Nigel crumpled to the ground at her feet.
The seconds blurred together. Carmen, gun still clenched in her hand, looked up to see the face of... Valentino Mar.
Her mind spun.
'How can this be? How can this be? He's in prison, isn't he? Isn't he?'
Mar aimed his gun at her but found himself forgotten as Carmen knelt over Nigel in despair. He had been aiming for her to begin with. She always walked in front. No matter. He would finish this now.
'So strange that you just walked in, though,' He thought as he pressed the nozzle of his gun to the back of Carmen's head. 'You're usually not this sloppy.'
Carmen felt the cold ring on the back of her neck but didn't move.
'What does it matter if he shoots me? End it.'
A mass of armed agents suddenly swarmed in and secured the man in a matter of seconds while Carmen watched in horror as the nightmare compounded upon itself.
"How did you know I would be here?" He screamed at them in Italian. "Who told you? Who told you?"
Reason slowly bubbled to the surface, hot and think as lava.
'It was a setup! It was all a goddamned setup! They had never arrested Mar! It was all a goddamned setup!'
Carmen looked tearfully at Nigel, dead in her arms, a smile still on his face. She heard people talking above her, one telling her it was for the greater good. The room was spinning too fast, her soul broken on the floor.
'I was the bait. They used me as bait to get him out of hiding. And I believed them! Oh god, I believed them!'
Anger and searing pain consumed her as she pulled herself up. A man in a dark suit was leading her towards a black car. Something cried with all her being, 'no!' that the car was the end, that she must run, that she knew too much. Carmen broke away from them, the pain, the blaring sirens and the blood on the floor.
And ran.
The rain started, coming down hard and soaking her, but she didn't care. She could feel them pursuing her as she ran blindly down the dirt back roads. Running for her life from those she had invested her life to. At last she ducked into a shack and curled herself into a little ball, a quivering mass, and cried as she had never done before. The train of dreams had left her dying beside the track, escaping her sight into the tunnel of despair.
Carmen felt the world fall away and she fell unconscious.
June 14, 1985, San Francisco
"Hello?"
"Is this the chief of Acme?"
The voice was cold and hard, as opposed to that of the chief's cheery chatter.
"Why yes it is! Can I help you?"
"This is the FBI. I am to inform you that special agent Nigel Orson Reeves has been relocated for a top-secret sting operation effective immediately."
"Oh. Do you think he'll be back in time for Carmen's wedding?"
"I can't say. As for agent Armani, a small squabble in the warehouse she was investigating has left a hired hand dead. He was shot in the face and in unrecognizable. We need her back investigate the murder."
"She's not there anymore?"
"She seems to have run out on us at the moment. We believe she is returning to ACME. Please make our wishes known to her."
"Ah si! Comprende mas!"
"Excuse me?"
"Uh...yes I will."
"Thank you for your time. Carmen has been of... excellent service to us."
"I'll tell her that!"
"Good day"
"Bye!"
June 14, 1985; airplane to San Francisco
Carmen stared out the window. There had once been someone sitting here beside her, but now no longer. The ocean looked vast and dismal below her, the sky, grey. The plane had taken off five hours ago, and looking back Carmen could barely remember anything that happened.
She remembered waking up two hours later and shedding herself of the blood stained trench coat.
'His blood.'
She had blindly made her way to the airport and somehow managed to book this flight home without being discovered. Perhaps they had planned it that way. She didn't know. All her thoughts had spun out into nothingness. Only now were they becoming comprehensible.
She tried to organize them in her head.
'Nigel is dead. The government betrayed me. They told me Mar was arrested when he wasn't. Why? So that an unsuspecting me would lure him out of hiding. Why not tell me? Because I wouldn't do it. Do I hate Mar more now? Strangely enough I don't. He too was just a pawn in this. He didn't hate Nigel. He didn't know Nigel. Nigel… The irony of it hurts so bad. You tried so hard not to be the pawn but died as one. You tried to warn me but I never listened.
'Now you're dead.
'If I hadn't frozen I could have killed Mar first. I had the time. I shouldn't have let you come. I shouldn't have let you walk in front. I should have left you at the hotel. Shoulda coulda woulda... Damn you, Carmen.
'What do I do now? Did Acme help plan this? No. How do you kn- no, I can't... Acme will fix it. I have to hold onto something…'
The plane began to land and Carmen was forced out of her trance. She walked down the terminal alone. She waved down a cab and dozed as it floated down Polk St. It stopped in a dream. Carmen paid the man and walked up the worn marble steps. She entered, feeling so many emotions and yet none.
The chief greeted her inside.
"Hey Carmen!"
"I just want to die."
"Oh, losing Nigel can't be that bad."
Carmen stared at him, stunned. The room began to tilt.
"What…? How can you...how can you say that?"
"Hey, hey calm down, Carmen. The man on the phone told me what happened. That's just life, you know? It will be okay."
Carmen staggered backwards.
'How do you know this? How do you know? He couldn't have...'
"Take that back." She whispered, her voice now dark and deadly.
"For heaven's sake Carmen, it's not the end of the world!"
'No, no, no! He couldn't have! Why are you doing this?'
Carmen wanted to scream at him but was beyond words.
"Oh, Carmen? You have to go back to Hong Kong and investigate the murder."
She nearly collapsed.
"Carmen?"
"No"
"What?"
"I said 'no'."
"Knock it off, Carmen! I said go and that's and order!"
The room was silent.
"All right then. I'll go." Carmen answered calmly, and quietly left the room as she let herself slip into the abyss.
"Geez. She's so temperamental sometimes."
Carmen walked into her room as the chill of death set in. Acme had been a part of this all along. How could he? How could he be so nonchalant? Carmen hit her pillow with force but felt nothing. She was beyond feeling anything now.
'Oh I'm going, all right,' Carmen thought. Into a large suitcase she placed her favorite things. Her violin, her rag doll from the orphanage, her favorite books, and Nigel's rosary beads. She put the beads in quickly, hardly able to touch them. She threw in some other necessities and clothing, then looked around the room.
"I am the living dead." Carmen said to her mirror.
Then left.
"I'll see you in a while, Carmen. Cheer up!" The chief called to her as she walked through the master room. The heavy suitcase should have been a warning flag to him but he took no notice.
"Perhaps." Carmen replied coldly, and walked out of ACME for very last time. The 57'
Buick was where she had left it, parked in the underground driveway. She went to the bank and closed out her account, then left San Francisco for the unknown. The desert highways invited and she had to follow. There was nothing left for her in this storm of angels.
