AN: THANKYOU ALL REVIEWERS! Again, I'm really sorry this took so long, I hope the length makes up for it. When school lets out in a couple weeks, I should be writing much faster, but I should have another chapter in 2-3 weeks. (Bows to all reviewers) Keep up the feedback please!
Chapter 3
A misty rain drizzles into my cup. Oh, L.A. City of Angels, city of smog, city of really shitty coffee. I've been sitting in the same hard-plastic seat outside of a little bakery/café for about six hours now, reordering the stuff so they can't kick me out, so by now I consider myself to be quite qualified in the area of coffee judging.
And why am I sitting here? Because according to my wonderful boss, White's people are going to go after a transgenic somewhere on this street, sometime today. Of course, with all his resources at his beck and call, he just couldn't manage to get the exact address, or time, so I had to wander up and down the street until this place opened, and when I finally got off my feet and sat at one of their outdoor tables (naturally there isn't a shop on this entire street that has indoor seating) it started to rain.
Admittedly, I'd be in far better humor about the situation if I'd been able to get to a sleep last night, but the airport "just happened" to lose all of my luggage, and I was stupid enough to leave the better part of my money hidden in one of those bags. What's left is rapidly being spent on coffee, so I can watch the street as unconspicuously as I can manage, but since there's no where else for me to move to, that isn't much.
Only stroke of any luck whatsoever that I've had is that I put the S-15's in my carry-on. Basically they're recording contacts, fresh technology that just got put on the market, and isn't very well known about. Perfect for a reporter. If I'd lost them, not only would Hensky kill me for how much the things costed him but I'd lose my chance at the whole story, and would have found myself without a job, if not a pulse.
I'd put them in this morning so I would be able to catch anything that happened from the start, but so far all they've had the chance to record are people on their way to work, people who are dressed like they should be at work, but aren't, and some homeless people across the street. Also some very nice shots of graffiti on the dull gray walls of the nearby buildings, and the periodic contents of my coffee mug. For a story that's supposed to be the biggest in history, so far all it has is a remedy for insomnia.
I glance at my watch. 12:00. Lunch hour. On cue, the door of the office building across the street opens, and people trickle out, all headed for here. I snap out of my funk and watch them slant-wase. Whoever White's supposed to pick up today, they've gotta work somewhere on this street. I direct my attention to each person who sits at the tables around me, trying to narrow the choices down and see if I can pick out a transgenic.
"If I ever see another data-file, it'll be too soon." I start with the two at the table in front and to the right of me. The first guy who spoke is in his early thirties, according to the files Hensky gave me, too old, but his companion looks younger, in his twenty's, brown hair, good looking, he fits the profile of a…what was that age-group…X5. He could be one. I keep watching casually as he laughs a little at the first guy's comment.
"Isn't your day than, boss had you on the list to work late again tonight." The younger man seems to take enormous pleasure in this, dark eyes glinting wickedly as his friend gives a theatric groan. Could definitely be it. The waitress reaches their table, and he turns in his head up to order, giving me a view of the back of his neck. I scan it carefully, blood beginning to sound in my ears. No barcode, and no signs of the removal of one. A little bit of disappointment flickers across my mind as I write him off as human, but I squash it out. Just because he's in his twenties and not ugly doesn't make him an X5. Disappointment is replaced with irritation for getting myself so tense. I turn my attention to the next table over, which easily has the loudest and most animated people in the café.
"Come on, you don't really believe all that crap about a bunch of transgenic maniacs 'wandering the streets among us' do you? Gimme a break."
This one is sandy-haired, tanned, and approximately the right age, but way too solid in his disbelief for it to be an act. And his buddy and him are both attracting way too much attention for someone who's on the run. Not transgenics, but the conversation is definitely worth listening to, even just for the entertainment value.
"Ya never know. All that technological crap they can pull off now, I can see somebody pulling off making a bunch of mutants. Don't know why they would, but…and that guy White is always goin on about how people need ta be on alert…"
"White's a paranoid lunatic." Sandy-hair cuts him off with flat certainty. "The only reason he has whatever authority he's got is because he can grease the wheels. The guy belongs in a nuthouse, but since he isn't, everyday people like you and me gotta suffer for it."
The next trickle of workers pours out of a building, and I scan them for more likelies, abandoning the conversation for a moment, but this business is more upper-class, with older workers all dressed in formals. Not very encouraging, but it's less people to scan. I start to turn to another table older when Sandy-hair smacks the other gut upside the head.
"Don't you know anything? It hasn't reached this far yet, but in SEATTLE, White n his crew are starting the Spanish Inquisition. Door to door 'Have you seen anyone demonstrate unusual abilities? Do you know anyone who you suspect of being a transgenic? Does anyone you know have unusual behavior?' On and On." He leans over his food, and his voice finally drops. "And I've heard, if White doesn't like something someone says, that person gets loaded into a car, and nobody sees em again. The guy's looking for things that don't exist, and he's killing people trying to find em." He shakes his head. "Just a matter of time til…"
An enormous crash splits the air, cutting off the rest of his response. I spin to see shards of glass falling to the ground, streaming from a 4th story window about 200 yards down the street. A large, lumpish figure is falling with them.
The whole sleepy street seems to wake up at once. Everywhere, people are screaming. Military suddenly appear all around the building with the broken window, pouring out the doors, running out of alleys, shouting orders. Gunshots ring through the air as the crowd of soldiers blocks my view of what's going on.
It takes me a second to realize that I'm still sitting down at my table, I'm so caught up in absorbing how fast everything happened. It takes me another second to realize what I should be doing. Then I'm on my feet, running toward the soldiers, or after the soldiers, since they're on the move now. Deciding that they must have more of an idea of where it's headed than I do, I pick one soldier to keep in my sight and follow him.
This puts me at a disadvantage, since out of the entire crowd, I'm the only one headed in this direction. The soldier has no problems whatsoever, the crowd parts around the weapon he has in his hands, but immediately closes in around me. He gains more and more of a lead as I'm jostled, slammed into, knocked sliding to the ground, stepped on, and stand up to have the process repeated.
By the time the throng of people passes, I'm battered and bruised, and there's no trace of the soldier. There's no trace of anybody, the shouts of the soldiers have faded, as have the gunshots, leaving only an eerie silence. They couldn't have gotten that far, I only went down a couple streets. I pick up a jog and start to search, turning onto random streets when one direction leads to nothing.
None have any trace of anyone. The residents are probably hiding, but where the hell did White's military get to? I finally stop to catch my breath, trying to visualize the crash course I gave myself in L.A.'s gergraphy. There must be some hiding place, some abandoned spot where they've holed up. Maybe down in…
Shadows flicker across my face. People! I look around, no one, nothing, but the shadows keep coming from…up. I can't see well against the glare of the sun but dark shapes are going gracefully overtop of me from building to building. There's people flying up there. I stare for a second, awestruck, before realizing how ridiculous that is. I knew I was going to see weird stuff after I read that packet, I shouldn't be off-balanced this much. Weird stuff means their transgenics, and transgenics mean that I've got to follow them.
I don't jog, I run. As fast as I can to keep the shadows in sight. I was on the track team in college a couple years ago, and I was good, but the distance between me and the dark blots is rapidly growing. After following for a little ways it dawns on me that they're moving in a straight line, so I stop making sure they're in sight and just run for all I'm worth.
Sounds are coming again: engines, tires squealing, people cursing…and the guns. I hate guns. Following those sounds, I enter a street that's become a war-zone.
The lead jeep has screeched to a halt, tire marks trailing 10 feet behind it. The rest of them are in various states of disorder, armed men pouring out of them, but I pay them no mind, the main attraction is all to the front. All of the soldiers there are unconscious, littered around the ground, but there's someone with long hair, a girl, hunched over in the back. The click of the guns surrounding the jeep stops me mid-stride from getting a closer look. A blur of a falling form falls across my line of vision, knocking 6 men to the ground, then leaping clear as the gunfire starts. The rest of the men start shouting, and the guns change position towards the sky, where people are dropping, mimicking the first in hit-and-run attacks.
The group Hensky was talking about, they're here. I retreat farther into the shadows, but try to keep them all in sight. They're amazing…moving faster than I can see, dodging bullets, jumping up to the rooftops of the lower buildings, disappearing, then reappearing to tackle another bunch of soldiers, always moving, forwards, backwards, sideways, but never running into each other. I can't help feeling a little awed terror of anything that can move like that. The soldiers can't keep one consistent target, and they're firing but not hitting anything but air. They're starting to fall, and havok is breaking loose. The girl in the truck, who I'd almost forgotten about, seems to notice this at the same time I do. She bolts from the truck in a blur, with another one, a male who I hadn't seen in there, close on her heels.
They blur, leaping on top of a convenient store, racing across, then up again to a higher building. The others follow suit, dissolving back into the recesses. The only ones left are the two from the jeep. Staying in the shadows, I follow them, trying to keep my eyes on them at all times so the S-15s can catch everything. They're jumping, running, plunging, running…An explosion of sound from right behind me, and the male, which had gotten a little bit of a lead, falls forward, even from where I am, I can see the sparkling redness coating his back. The female falters for a second, then without breaking stride, scoops him up in her arms and ducks away, sprays of bullets following her retreat.
I keep on following, trying to keep her in my sight as the soldiers pursue. My common sense tells me that if I don't get killed by one of the transgenics in front of me, I'm just as likely to get shot by the soldiers behind me, but after seeing everything I've just seen, my investigative journalism urges are fighting it down, and I barely notice. The transgenics fade out of sight- again. D@mn these things are hard to get hold of. I don't stop this time though, I just keep on going in the same general direction and hope for the best. The soldiers that were behind me don't seem to have my faith, their footsteps slow down and draw to a halt.
"Freeze!" Oh shit. I freeze. I'm not even breathing. Do they think I'm a transgenic? What'll they do to me if they think so? Will they believe me if I tell them I'm not? The click of boots on metal signals the approach of three men as they come around me, levering their guns. I am so dead.
The two on either side exchange knowing glances, then get ready to pull their triggers. The milli-seconds tick by, and I'm like a deer caught in headlights. I'm gonna die. They'rer going to kill me. It was the story of a lifetime. That was the stupidest thing I've ever done, running in front of the soldiers, in the same direction as the transgenics. What else would these guys think but that I'm just slower than the others because I'm wounded or something? I brace myself for the gunshot, but the middle guy, the leader, holds up a hand and looks me up and down thoughtfully.
"You're Hensky's guy." Not a question, a statement, but I answer anyway.
"Yea, Yeah. He sent me to…" He doesn't seem very happy that I'm talking, so I shut up. He frowns at me another second before waving a hand signal to the men behind me. The boot-clicks begin again and fade away. The leader and the two other guys in front of me follow suit, striding past me without sparing me so much as a glance. After a couple of minutes, I can hear the jeeps start back up again, they just left me here.
I realize that I still haven't moved since they told me to freeze, and consciously make myself step forward and keep going. Deep breaths, one foot in front of the other, and repeat. I don't think I've ever felt that precise degree of terror in my life. Lucky the middle guy saw there was no wound on me and figured out that I wasn't a transgenic. Worked out lucky for me, but the fact that he knew that Henaky sent me is so not good. That means White knows, which means he's watching us- tapped into Hensky's cameras or something, making sure we don't drag any skeletons out of the closet. I should let Hensky know about that when I get back. If White finds out what we're doing for stories, then he could sell a warning to whoever or whatever it is, we wouldn't get the story…it'd be a mess. Worked out well for me short-term though, since he warned his guys not to kill me, but I'd really like to know why he's choosing to let me keep on going on this story. Either he's got nothing to hide, but keeping a lot of stuff from the public, meaning he's got his own agenda, makes that incredibly doubtful; or he doesn't think I've got much of a chance of catching up with them again, which is incredibly discouraging.
I'm out of the city now, and at the edge of the surrounding forest. It's getting later in the day, and dark shadows are slanting through the tree-leaves, making them look somewhat less than inviting. My body utters a loud complaint at the thought of moving again, but I'm still wrapped up in the story. The things I saw those things do today…Reasonably, at the pace they were moving those things are long gone by now, but since I don't know that for sure, I'll try for just a little longer.
I watch everywhere; the sky, the trees, and the ground. Nothing shows up, just squirrels, birds, and the deepening shadows. After another half-hour or so, I'm about ready to turn back. If I haven't found them by now, all I've done is throw myself farther off the trail, and I haven't got any food or water, nothing to keep me going to start again tomorrow. One last glance around puts my senses on alert. There's a shadow on the ground that's moving…and visibly getting bigger. I only have a brief time to puzzle over this before blackness envelops me.