Showgirls and Cowgirls
Chapter 10 – Down the Rabbit Hole
Roxanne, Spike, and Georgia all stayed quiet as they continued to make their way through the sewers. Roxanne in particular was ready to shoot her gun or throw her knife at the first unusual noise she heard. But then she reminded herself that she was water. And cleaner water than what the tunnels down here had to offer. With that in mind, she continued to follow Spike's lead, while Georgia kept her MP-5 pointed behind them. Though even with the tightening, tense air around them, Roxanne knew she had to ask Spike a question she knew he was probably dreading.
"When are we gonna get out of here?" she asked, not raising her voice above a whisper.
"When I say we can!" Spike hissed back. "But keep your gun loaded and your hand on your knife. We're almost there."
Roxanne wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but she knew doing so might send a signal to anyone down here. She even managed to stifle a gasp when she bumped into someone and then realized Spike had stopped moving.
"Okay, see that grate over there?" he asked as he pointed. Roxanne followed it to the small but bright rays of sunlight making a circle on the ceiling of the sewer. She nodded. "When I say the coast is clear, we move, alright?"
Roxanne nodded again. Spike then turned his head slightly around the corner, scanning the two tunnels beyond for any sign of trouble. He then turned around and nodded his head forward. But as all three of them turned the corner, Roxanne's blood ran cold when she heard distant laughter that sounded like it wasn't too far behind. She, Spike, and Georgia stopped dead where they all were.
"Thought you got rid of us, didn't you?" a masculine voice said. Roxanne felt her blood pressure go sky high. They'd been found.
"And thank you, bounty man, for leading us to the ultimate prize," another, different voice called out. If Roxanne's blood had been running cold, now she felt as though her heart might stop. What did that guy mean? Who could he be referring to other than...the man standing right next to her. But before Roxanne could think about it any further, the first male voice spoke again, louder this time.
"Say goodnight, pretty." And right then, a man skirted around the corner and fired his gun. Roxanne held up her hands, but she didn't feel the hit and sting. Instead, she heard a feminine cry of pain other than her own. And her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open when she saw Georgia hugging her now bloody side. Roxanne froze as the image sunk in. Her former matron had been shot.
"Georgia!" she cried out. Her eyes then landed on the man who shot, the blood draining from his face when he saw he'd missed his intended target. Fear now giving way to fury, Roxanne took up Georgia's submachine gun, even while the man and his companion turned to flee. Roxanne turned the corner and pulled the trigger as hard as she could, sending a firestorm of bullets after the assassins, even when she knew she was missing. The firing sounds were still echoing around her and ringing in her ears as she turned again and headed back to Georgia, who had now sunk to the ground.
"Georgia!" she cried again, tears now filling her eyes. She got down and tried to move the woman's hand away from her wound, but Georgia held firm as she looked up at Roxanne with stern, almost motherly eyes.
"Give me the gun, Roxanne," she said, her voice now strained in pain. "I'll be fine."
Roxanne shook her head. "No, you won't!" she insisted, the tears threatening to escape. "I'm taking you with me!"
"No!" Georgia shook her head. "I'll only be a burden to you. Please, get out of here. Get out of here, now!" She then directed her head toward the grate behind them. Roxanne looked up and saw that it was open, and a hand was waving at her to come on. She felt torn, wanting to stay with her former matron and wanting to do as she said. But as she looked at the woman's fierce eyes again, Roxanne remembered the most important thing about Georgia: You did not argue with her.
Reluctantly, Roxanne laid the submachine gun down next to Georgia and stepped over her. With one last teary eyed look at her, she forced herself to make her way up the ladder and out of the sewer. And once she was out, she could barely bring herself to look as she heard the grate close over the hole. She knew that if she did she would've gone right back down and refused to leave.
Before she knew it, she felt someone take hold of her elbow and say, "Come on. We can't stop." Roxanne remembered that voice. Remembered who she was with. And remembered all too well what that gunman had said about him. Roxanne could hardly believe it, but there was no way around it. She'd been scammed. She'd been betrayed. And she let the man next to her know it with a cry of fury and a punch to his jaw.
Spike immediately staggered back and lifted a hand to his injured face, which looked at her with dismay. "Wha-?"
"You set me up!" Roxanne growled before he could finish his question, the tears, now ones of anger, falling down her cheeks.
"I did not!" Spike shook his head profusely, still recovering from the surprise. "We must've been followed!"
Roxanne was filled with disgust at his denial. "Then why did that guy practically thank you for leading them to me?!"
"Probably to get you to think what you're thinking now!" Spike exclaimed, as though it were obvious.
Oh, it seemed obvious to Roxanne alright, even if part of her was saying Spike was telling the truth. Even so, she pulled out her gun, held Spike against a brick wall, and pressed the barrel of her weapon right above his heart. Sweat had now broken out on her forehead. And though she wanted to ignore it, Spike's alarmed expression tore through to the innermost parts of her, making her all the more mad.
"I really don't want to do this Spike, or whoever you are!" she said through clenched teeth that threatened to break. "So you've got thirty seconds to tell me why I shouldn't!"
For a moment, the two just stared at each other, both struggling to catch their breath. Until Spike realized this half-minute he had could mean his life or death.
"Okay, I don't have much time to clear my name anyway," he said, looking at her with those intense brown eyes, one of which Roxanne noticed was slightly lighter than the other. "So all I'm gonna say is, don't believe them. Don't believe anything anyone we see says."
They continued to stare at each other, neither of them so much as blinking. Spike almost seemed to dare her to do something she'd never done before. Something she didn't want to do even now, no matter how angry she was. No. She couldn't do it. She still needed him, as much as she hated to admit it. With great hesitance, she pulled the gun away from Spike's chest and tucked it back into her belt, not once taking her eyes off him.
"Alright," Spike then said after he unglued himself from the wall, "if you're done with your angry fit, we've gotta get to the hangar."
Right then, despite all that had happened, despite all that threatened to make her fall to pieces, Roxanne remembered she had a mission. She had to make it out of this crazy town, away from Viper's men. She had to do it for all the people who ever made the risk to care about her. Including Georgia. She couldn't fail them now.
"Then lead the way," Roxanne nonetheless deadpanned. She then followed Spike's lead as she had before. But this time, she kept her hands on her weapons at all times. No one was going to take her by surprise this time. And if they did, the hell of her fury would await them. As much as she'd been angry at Spike, she still found value in his words he said to her just hours ago. To be water. Well, if that was what she had to be, she was now a torrent, wild and raging.
Fortunately, it didn't take them long to reach the hangar. Her hands still pressed to her sides, Roxanne and Spike looked both ways before they made the crossing together. That was when Roxanne noticed the heavy double doors were slightly opened. And she knew immediately what that meant. Though she felt Spike's touch as he tried to take her and hold her behind, Roxanne made her way through the door, and found two gunmen waiting for her.
They raised their weapons, but before either of them could fire, Roxanne herself shot their weapons out of their hands, grazing them in the process. She then pointed the barrel of her gun up where she'd parked her flyer, and growled in a menacing, furious voice, "That's mine!"
Her weapon then raised to fire again, Roxanne narrowed her eyes as the two gunmen slowly, then hastily backed out of the large room before breaking into a run outside. When she heard more footsteps behind her, she spun around but then stopped when she saw Spike, his own weapon at the ready.
"Go, I've got your back!" he waved at her. When Roxanne didn't move at first, he looked directly at her and said, "Really."
"Pssh," Roxanne said as she turned around and looked up at the craft that had served her well throughout the years. She'd found it in Red's garage and had used it to escape from Earth and go here on Mars. And she hid it here in case she needed it later, which, it turned out, she did. She piloted it when she needed to go out of town to hunt down a bounty or two. Now she just hoped it would serve her one more time in this most desperate of circumstances.
Once again going for the stealthy approach, Roxanne stepped back, then ran forward and jumped, grabbing hold of the lower bars of the craft. Then, after swinging herself up until she was sitting balanced on them, she took out the picklock she and Spike had devised and began twisting it in the door's lock. Her heart beat faster with every passing second it didn't budge. And Spike calling out a warning didn't help things much.
"Hurry up, they're almost here!" he said impatiently. Roxanne clenched her teeth again. She had a feeling those guys would call for backup, with more weapons to shoot at them. And if she didn't get this door unlocked soon... There!
"Got it!" she called out, but not too loudly. After opening the door and then making her way inside, she waved at Spike to come forward. "Up here!"
Spike put away his weapon, pulled the lever to open the roof of the hangar, and then ran for the lower bars just as she did. He jumped up and grabbed hold, but just as he did, Spike let out the second cry of pain to grace Roxanne's ears that day, and she realized what had happened. As she then noticed what appeared to be three men ready to open the door and force her to surrender, Roxanne knew she wasn't going to let them have their way. She took out her gun and fired five warning shots at them. And the threat served its purpose.
But then, as soon as they'd left her vision, she heard the voice of the man below her shout something she never thought to hear from him.
"Roxanne!" That alone was enough to make her freeze momentarily. She had only once heard her name spoken by Spike, and this was the first time he'd ever called out to her in desperation. For a moment, she was caught in a daze of disbelief. Until she saw the bright red wound just below Spike's knee, and his fingers begin to slip from their hold. Roxanne's heartbeat sped up again. Despite her previous anger toward him, she knew she couldn't let him fall and become prey for Viper's den of snakes. Not after all he'd done, all he'd risked for her.
"No, no, no! No, no, no!" she cried quickly as she shot her hand out toward him. "Come on! Come on! Come on!"
Using what seemed to be all his strength, Spike threw his hand up and grabbed hers. But he proved heavier than he first seemed. Roxanne's hand slipped and she let go of him. But before Spike could lose his hold completely, she shot both hands out, grabbing both the back of his suit jacket and his hair. Again, he cried out. But Roxanne ignored it as she let out her own shout of effort and pulled him as hard as she could until they were both inside the craft.
For a moment, as he lay on top of her, all she could do was pant, try to catch her breath. But as soon as Roxanne heard the footsteps outside, she knew she had to act fast. She shoved Spike off, flew to the door, and just as the bullets started flying she pulled it shut, and then fell down in the pilot's seat behind her.
"Well, was that close or what?" Spike asked, seeming to be back to his usual laidback manner.
"You think?" Roxanne said back. And right as she spoke, she heard another familiar voice, this time from the craft itself.
"Voice recognition received. Activate Zipcraft?" What Roxanne liked about these types of flyers was that they came with security measures such as this.
"Yes, dangit, yes, now!" she then said as she strapped herself in. Lights then flashed from the control panel, but Roxanne knew that wasn't enough.
"Turn engines on!" she commanded. Once she did, the engines roared to life, a sound Roxanne never got tired of hearing.
With her hands gripped to the steering wheel, she backed it up at first, getting it off of the parking hooks. Then, seeing that the roof was starting to close, Roxanne forced the steering wheel in the direction she wanted, sending the craft up into the air and just barely avoiding being cut in half by the roof. Once she pulled it to a stop, hovering over the hangar and the town itself by several dozen feet, she spoke several more commands.
"Navigation computer on! Set coordinates for B1-14 hangar! Autopilot on!" Just before she set the last command, she turned around to make sure Spike was in his seat and strapped in. When she saw he was, she muttered, "Hold onto your butt." Then she spoke aloud the final command. "Engage full throttle!"
Right when she said it, the engines in the craft roared again. And before another second passed, she and Spike did indeed hold on as the craft sped forward toward their destination. Just then, Roxanne remembered what happened to Spike. And now that the autopilot was on, she didn't have any distractions, at least for the moment. She turned around in her seat and asked Spike, "Hey, you alright?"
Spike was gripping his knee, his hands red with blood. "Ugh, moments from death!" he exclaimed, his eyes looking as though they were going to roll back in his head. Other than that, he didn't look moments from death as he claimed. Roxanne only gave him a skeptical look. Spike gave her a smirk in return.
"I'll be fine. Just a graze wound. Nothing too deep." Then, he jumped in his seat as the craft changed direction. Probably would've tossed him out of his seat had he not been wearing his seatbelt. Roxanne herself turned around in her seat, just to make sure they were taking the right path. They were, as far as she could tell.
"Where did you get this thing, anyway?" Spike then asked her, sounding as though he were already done with this ride.
"A sixteenth birthday present from Red," Roxanne replied, even though thinking it sent a shot of physical pain to the back of her head. Deciding to combat it with some humor, she chuckled as she then said, "Every cowgirl needs a horse, and this one's mine."
"Well, no offense but, I think it could use more than a couple updates," Spike said after he recovered his balance.
"Hey, I don't tell you how to take care of your Swordfish!" Roxanne exclaimed. "Actually, speaking of which..." Right after she spoke, the hangar that held Spike's flyer came into view, and the voice from the craft's computer spoke up again.
"About to reach entered destination. Disengaging full throttle. Turning off autopilot." Gripping the steering wheel tight again, Roxanne pulled it to a complete stop close to the ground. And right in front of them stood the B1-14 hangar. All Spike had to do was survive the onslaught of men she was already seeing, get his Swordfish, and finally leave with her. But, of course, she was going to give him a good bit of help.
"Battle computer on!" When the light of the screen flared up, Roxanne touched her fingers at all the stacked boxes nearest them, setting them up as targets for her missiles to give the gunmen a warning. She only hoped it wouldn't damage the building too badly. Otherwise her already damaged reputation would be marred even further.
"Missile power 2.0! Fire at entered targets!" Right after she spoke, the small but deadly missiles shot at the targeted crates, creating a big enough firestorm to cause all the gunmen to jump away. But just then, Roxanne remembered Spike had been shot at himself. She turned around in her seat again.
"Can you jump down there?" she asked him. It wasn't too long a jump, but she was still concerned.
"Hey, you didn't let a stab wound stop you!" Spike smirked at her again. With his weapon in hand, he pulled the door open, walked back out on the sidebars, and closed the door again behind him. Roxanne then watched as he jumped down to the ground. She took a sharp intake of breath as he staggered a little bit. But other than that, he seemed to be fine. Then though, her concern changed to frustration as she saw him raise his weapon toward where the gunman were. She couldn't hear him, but he was probably smart-mouthing them.
"Cut the chit-chat and get in there, stupid!" she implored him. Fortunately, he seemed to remember he was on an important mission, and Roxanne watched once again as he then raced inside the building. Now, all she could do was wait. And her frustration quickly turned back to fear again as the seconds passed, and she still didn't see him. After a minute passed, she felt her heart pound against her chest, thinking twice this day of all the things that could've gone wrong. Spike had already been injured. Would that lower his chances? Even if he was confident in his abilities, that didn't mean he'd make it out of there alive.
But just when Roxanne thought she had a heart-attack, she saw the roof open. And before it was opened completely, her eyes lit up when she saw Spike's Swordfish. At first she had the idea that one of the gunmen might be tricking her, until she saw Spike in the pilot's seat, and she let out a victorious, "Yes!"
Just then, she heard Spike's voice from her craft's com. He sounded out of breath, but otherwise he seemed okay. "Alright, let's get outta here! You ready?!"
"Duh!" Roxanne let out a slight laugh. "Let's punch it!" She then spoke to her craft again. "Engage full throttle!"
As the engines roared to life, she heard Spike again. "Okay, follow me!" Roxanne then looked up to see Spike's Swordfish fly upward toward the sky, the engines blaring behind it. Her own engines sounding as though they were itching to go, Roxanne finally turned them loose and took off after Spike.
As the two flew, Roxanne following Spike the whole way, neither of them spoke. Roxanne only kept her flyer moving fast and watched as the sky slowly began to darken. She had only been in a situation like this once before, when she fled the mental asylum on Earth and passed through the gates to come here to Mars. For a split second, the memory returned to her. How desperate she was to flee, even more so than she was now. And how scary the black emptiness before her had been. Even now she wondered how she didn't get lost in it. But before she could lose focus completely, Roxanne turned her mind back to the present, back to what was happening now.
And she only now realized that they had left the planet completely behind, and there was nothing ahead of them but the vast, black, star-dotted expanse of space. Roxanne almost let her hands go limp and leave the steering wheel, when Spike spoke to her again from his Swordfish.
"Well, ironic that we can breathe again, considering we're in space but, hey, we made it!" Roxanne heard him, yet didn't at the same time. She had only now begun to process and let sink in everything that had happened, all in one morning. "Hey, you alright?" Spike then asked.
Deciding just then to shake herself out of it, Roxanne nodded, even though she knew Spike probably couldn't see her. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."
"Have you ever been out here before?" Spike asked her. Was he sounding concerned for her? At this point, Roxanne didn't know. Or even care.
"Only once," she replied simply. She then let herself sink slightly into her seat, wondering if she ever would get to catch her breath.
"Oh, yeah, I remember," Spike then said, sounding like he was probably smiling. But then, sounding as though concerned again, he asked, "It's not just that, is it?"
"No," Roxanne shook her head, "it's not." This she said as she looked behind her, almost with longing, at the red planet that had been her home the past year. Where she left behind the only people on that world who cared about her. She wondered if Georgia had gotten out of the sewer. A best case scenario formed in her mind involving her bouncers finding her and getting help for her side wound. As for a worst case scenario... Roxanne didn't even want to think about it. All that she really wanted to matter to her now was that she was out of there, just as Georgia wanted her to be. Just as Red would've wanted her to be.
"Well," Spike said after a moment of silence, "we've gotta find some place to go. Our fuel tanks can't hold us forever."
Roxanne then remembered where she was. She turned back around to focus her vision on Spike and his Swordfish, and nodded. "Right." She then remembered also that her hold on the steering wheel had grown lax. As she re-tightened it, she took a deep breath, reminding herself how fortunate she was to get out of there and away from Viper's men as she planned. And though she knew Viper wouldn't stop here, though she knew how relentless he was, Roxanne also reminded herself of one very important thing: Unlike before, unlike those other desperate times, here, she was not alone.
Much later, on a small familiar space station, a dozen men and their leader were lined up in front of the man they served. A king, in his eyes. And as a king, he demanded respect. Though he got plenty of that day after day, once again, they had not returned with what he really wanted. And now, as one of the men knelt down and held onto his bleeding foot, a bullet wound from their snake king, each of the others stood stock still as they wondered what sort of just punishment would await them.
"Have I ever said how much I hate it when my men fail?" the handsome yet villainous man asked. He shot another man in his foot, relishing his cry of pain.
"Have I ever said how much I really hate it when my men fail twice?" For added effect, the man known as Viper shot his gun two times now, into the kneecaps of a third man. His face scrunched up in anguish and he grunted as he fell to the ground. But the whole time, the man's eyes remained locked on the one in the middle.
"Do I make myself clear, Randy?" he asked as he pointed his weapon at him. But Randy didn't even flinch.
"Yes, Sir," he said. Though he retained a cool demeanor the whole time, his voice was strained, knowing how unpredictable his boss could be.
"Then why did you fail twice?!" Viper then asked as he threw the weapon at him, now seething like the hissing animal he was.
"Viper, I told you," Randy said, struggling now to keep his cool. "We staked out the place for two weeks. We weren't unprepared in any way. But, it seems, both of them outsmarted us." Though he prepared himself for every possible catastrophe, his heart still went to his throat as his boss then took hold of his suit jacket and slammed him to the back wall, knocking the wind out of him.
"You're my best man," Viper hissed, "and you're telling me you couldn't get hold of a twenty-year-old mental escapee and a low life bounty hunter?!"
"I, I'm sorry, Sir," Randy croaked. Even though Viper's hands weren't around his neck, they probably would be soon.
"I don't want your apologies!" Viper yelled in his face. Then, lowering his voice again, he snarled, "You said he has her with him?"
"Yes," Randy nodded. "We lost track of them, but we did see them leave the planet in their flyers."
"Then where is he taking her?" Viper asked, his hands now itching to wring the guy's neck off his body.
"That's the problem," Randy replied. "We don't know." He longed to back away, but the wall behind him prevented him from doing so.
"Well then, find out!" Viper yelled again. Just then though, he lowered his voice once more as he inched his face closer to his right-hand. "Or the next time you fail, I'll have your bloody, unrecognizable corpse sleeping among the stars and find another pathetic soul to do your job. You get me?!"
Randy nodded, not bothering to speak this time. Because as he looked into his boss's eyes, ones that didn't seem to house a soul of their own, he knew very well he wasn't lying. And he knew even more so that he'd be glad to do what he said he would.
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