James Cameron and Charles Eglee own Dark Angel. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned (or any other) copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons (either real or fictional) is unintended.
In peace nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard favour'd rage. . . – William Shakespeare, Henry V.
Max walked along Pine Street with the curiosity of a tourist, holding her 35mm camera in one hand and a Seattle tour guide in the other. Every couple of minutes she would stop and take some pictures of random buildings and sights. Finally, she reached her true destination – Cameron Dean's home. Once the rather pricey Inn at the Market, the building had been gutted and rebuilt to suit the needs of its previous owner – the criminal kingpin Norton Koch. One guard stood outside, and had already set his eyes on her. Max stopped and smiled as she took a couple of pictures of the building.
"Hey, why don't you get moving along?" he suggested.
"It's a nice building," Max commented.
"Yeah, it is, now take off," the guard replied gruffly.
"Is that a home for just one person or something?" Max asked sweetly, tilting her head slightly to seem as innocent as she could muster. With the way she spent her nights, she felt it was more difficult every day to appear anything remotely approaching either sweet or innocent.
"Leave," the man answered.
"Jeez, fine," Max replied. "I was just curious, is all."
"And why's that?" the guard asked. "This place a stop on your tour or something?"
"No, it's just that it isn't the house that caught my eye," Max said with a seductive grin. So I can't play innocent anymore... maybe I don't have to. The guard caught her meaning immediately and took a few steps toward her.
"So, just what is it you want?" he asked.
"Maybe a local who really knows where the most fun places are," Max suggested. "I bet the guy who lives here is really rich, so that would mean you're probably the best guard money can buy. Seattle can be a dangerous place, ya know? You think you could maybe show me around and protect me at the same time?"
"I think I could manage that," the guard replied with the smile of a man who was obviously feeling more confident that he would get some.
"So when do you get off duty?" Max asked, shuffling her feet slightly to try to make it seem she was a little shy about being so forward. She knew the guard would like that.
"Ten o'clock," the man answered. I can't believe you just told me when the shift change occurs, Max thought with amusement. She never ceased to be amazed at how easy it was to manipulate a man with just the possibility of sex.
"So where do you want to meet me?" Max asked.
"There's a bar called The Pike Pub and Brewery just a couple of blocks down 1st Ave, right by Union," the guard answered. "That would be perfect, I think. Make sure you wear something nice."
"Great," Max purred. "I'll see you a little after ten." Her lips spread into a wide, though forced, smile.
"I look forward to it," the guard replied as he turned and walked back toward the building. As soon as he back was turned, Max started clicking away with her camera. Five stories, mostly wood construction, barred windows... and somewhere in there is a hidden entrance to a fortified basement. She turned and began to walk away as a plan formed in her mind.
Well, there's no way in hell I'm gonna go in there without a clue as to the layout. No one seems to be talking, either. So if I'm not going in, I'll have to get them to come out. But how do you get someone to want to come out of a heavily fortified basement when they're expecting to be attacked? She walked several blocks, turning the idea over and over, until she formed a wicked grin as a solution came to her.
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Max checked her watch quickly – 9:30. She had half an hour until the shift change occurred, and likely only fifteen minutes before the next crew started to show up. In the next fifteen minutes, the guards that were presently working would be about as bored and inattentive as they were likely to get during their shift. This was the best time to make her preparations.
She looked across the uncharacteristically wide alley from her rooftop over to the top of Cameron Dean's building, and noted that he did not even have a rooftop sentry posted. It seemed strange, until she remembered Dave saying that Dean had been hoping that Justice would try to hit him. Apparently, the expectation was that by thinning the outer defenses and bringing her in closer, they would be able to strike back more effectively. Dollars to donuts it's a lot harder to get out of there than it is to get in, Max decided. I'll bet it's easy to enter through the roof, and that there are a few traps here and there throughout the building. I probably wouldn't meet any resistance until I reached the basement. Then, if they didn't take me out right away, I would have to go all the back up through the place before I could leave, since all the windows are barred. Not a bad plan, actually. Too bad I have something else in mind.
She leapt to Cameron Dean's roof, and then fastened her rappelling harness to a rope and silently lowered herself down the side of the building. As she went, she attached a few charges to the outside of the windows. Two minutes was all it took, and she was back on the roof of the building next-door and running away, hoping to get across the street unnoticed. By the time the first guards started showing up for their shift, Max was on the opposite rooftop, watching everything through the scope of her Barret 82A1 .50 Cal sniper rifle. The weapon was old, but certainly trustworthy. Three police cruisers drove past during the next five minutes, and Max decided that the cops had been alerted to the fact that Cameron Dean expected to be hit by the city's newest vigilante. They appeared to have been paid to want a piece of the action.
Max glanced to her side, making certain that her M-203 grenade launcher and all of her detonators were ready for use. They were. The minutes passed slowly, and Max spent the time alternately counting off the guards, and trying to get a song out of her head. While listening to some of Logan's old music, she had heard a song called 'Time in a Bottle.' Now the tune kept repeating in her mind, and she couldn't shake it off. The song made her think about Logan, and the ambiguous relationship that the two of them shared. Why is this even bothering me? she wondered. What's the big deal? Why am I thinking about Logan right now, anyway? She pondered the matter briefly, and then decided that the same part of her that was concerned about her recent decisions and actions was becoming more vocal. Something inside her wanted to stop living as Justice. Too much goddamned duality in my life, she decided. Max wants to stop and settle down and be normal, I guess. Justice wants to keep fighting. It seemed strange to Max to lie on a rooftop, gazing through a scope as she pondered the inner workings of her psyche. But if not now, when?
Max had started to fear the one event that would, as she saw it, put her just over the edge and prevent her from returning. Eventually, she knew, she would embrace the role of Justice as her primary personality, and what had been Max would die off a little more every day. She didn't want that, but at the same time she didn't want to live the simple life she had for so long. I can do so much more. Why live as a delivery girl?
Men started to gather on the street below, and Max knew that Cameron Dean's guards were likely in the middle of the changeover. I guess it's now or never, she decided. Although if I'm gonna walk away, I still have a chance to do so. I could just get up and leave right now. I could be at Logan's in ten minutes. We could play a game of chess. I could try to cook him dinner.... and then what? She looked again at the guards, and knew she had only moments left to decide. Do I really want to do this? She took a few extra seconds to ponder the matter. No, this isn't what I want to do. She continued to wait. I want to be normal. I want to just have an ordinary life, and maybe find a place to fit in. But I can't do that, can I? She took a deep sigh. Ah, screw it.
Her right hand flashed out and pushed the button on the first detonator, and a bright flash erupted from the side of the fourth story of the building. A moment later she pushed another button, and the third story exploded, the charge sending a spray of white phosphorous into the structure, igniting everything it touched. Another button, and a thunderous blast came from the rear of the building. There were only two exits from Cameron Dean's home, and the back door had just been cut off. Now he would have to come out the front. A fourth button ignited the fifth floor and brought a smile to Max's face. I'll bet the son of a bitch never expected a common vigilante to start using military ordnance against him.
She placed the sniper rifle at her side and picked up the M-203, firing several grenades through the front of the structure. Moments later, as she had planned, the first guards began to exit the building. Sirens could be heard from far off, and Max pressed the final two detonators in her hand. Two large explosions came to her ears from far off, engulfing two deserted theaters in flames. Each of them was dangerously close to large residential complexes, and police and firefighters in the area would have to prioritize the other fires first. That would give Max the time she needed with Cameron Dean.
Looking through the sniper rifle again, she waited for Dean to poke his head through the door. It didn't take long. He came dashing out, surrounded by four guards. With a few twitches of her right index finger, Max had removed the immediate impediments. However, firing again had revealed her location, and the remaining guards began to open up on her location. Max took a couple of extra shots, one of them hitting Cameron Dean in the leg and putting him down, but she could not risk poking her head out again. I guess I'm gonna have to go down there and finish this woman to man.
She rose to her feet and dashed to the side of the building. A quick ride down another rope and she was on street level, able to hear all of the shouting from the guards. They had been surprised, that much as certain, but they were quickly getting their act together. If Dean gets away this time, I might not get another shot for quite awhile, Max knew. It was unlikely her foes would underestimate her again.
In a flash she had run out into the street, an H&K MP-5 in each hand. Bursts of gunfire erupted from her weapons as she eliminated many of Cameron Dean's guards in the first few seconds. Max grunted briefly as she took a hit in her chest, but she knew the vest stopped any penetration. Still, her target had been firing a .45 caliber pistol. She knew the impact had probably broken, or at least bruised, one of her ribs. She returned fire and put her man down, and then ducked quickly and rolled as another man ran from the burning building, holding an AK-47 in his hand and seeming to be intent on emptying his drum clip as quickly as possible. Max took two more hits before she found cover, and this time she knew the vest had not helped her. One round had penetrated at her left shoulder. The wound was minor enough, but Max was certain her scapula had been shattered. That would require some professional attention. The second round had hit her in the left thigh, going straight through. A cursory evaluation convinced Max that she had been lucky enough to have the bullet miss her femoral artery, but the bleeding was still bad. Even worse, she was slowed down a great deal.
She could hear three men remove spent clips and reload as she examined her wounds, and Max knew she was in deep trouble. Now or never, she told herself. With as much speed as she could muster, she rose from behind the Mercedes she had been using as cover and opened up with her two MP-5's in the split second before her foes could bring their reloaded weapons back to bear. The guards were put down before they could get off a well-aimed shot, though Max knew that at least one bullet had missed her head by only inches – the unmistakable noise of the round whizzing past her head had told her that much.
All that remained was Cameron Dean, who was fighting to drag himself across the ground toward his Jeep. His own leg wound was bleeding badly, and Max could see that her .50 cal. round had all but blown the criminal's leg off. What remained was held on by only a few thin strands of flesh and sinew. Max dropped her MP-5's as she approached and drew a 9mm from the small of her back.
"If memory serves, you used a 9mm to whack your old boss, right?" Max asked as she limped toward her already defeated prey. "That's how you became the man." Cameron Dean only stared at her with vacant eyes, already obviously beginning to go into shock from the loss of blood. "Call me a sentimentalist if you want, but I believe in true justice. Hence my name. You put a 9mm round into your old boss' head, so I'll inflict the same punishment on you." Without another word she pulled the trigger, instantly ending Cameron Dean's life. "Just be thankful I didn't decide to punish you for some of your more heinous crimes," Max muttered as she began to trot away slowly into the dark.
To be concluded.............................