Sorry this has been such a long time coming, I went on vacation, and didn't get much chance to work on it. Anyway, here is chapter eight... Enjoy!
Dimitri's brow furrowed in frustration, as he closed the door to the lovely Miss Valentine's room. His ears still rang with her refusals, even after he'd threatened her with bodily harm. Honestly, the woman could be so unreasonable. Couldn't she see how much easier this would be for every one if she just gave in? Surely she knew that he couldn't allow her to live otherwise, she had defied him, after all.
Well, threats to her own well being wouldn't work, but maybe there was some one else she cared about... some one she was close to... a relative perhaps, or a colleague... a lover? What was it Faye Valentine, bounty hunter extraordinaire, care about?
Faye breathed a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut behind Dimitri. A shudder went through her body as she recalled the glint in his eye as he held his knife to her throat, and the smiled of pure enjoyment that graced his features. She knew a true sadist when she saw one, and she could tell he fit the bill, with his cold eyes searching hers hungrily, and the cool raspiness of his voice. She shuddered uncontrollably at the thought of being at his mercy. She hadn't been afraid like this since she'd been captured by Viscous.
Vicious... she stiffened at the thought; the name still sent a shiver up her spine, even after all these years. And it still brought sent a pang through her chest, because of the other name that had become permanently associated with it. It was that name that wandered to her lips, and she let herself say it. Just once. Just because it gave her strength.
"Spike." She whispered shakily... it all came back to Spike. Why couldn't he ever just die when he died? Why did he always have to haunt her, always have to invade her thoughts... it seemed like his name was always on her lips.
Faye smoothed her hair with her damp palm and chewed the offending protrusion. Her lips, the traitors that whispered painful words into the cold white walls around her.
Maybe... Maybe she should help Dimitri. If she helped him find the double... well, when confronted with Corbin, she'd see that he wasn't Spike, right? Maybe then she'd see how silly it was for her to cling to the hope that he might still be out there. Maybe then she could close the door to the past... even if he was still alive, he didn't love her, after all.
And maybe then, she could find a way to be happy and return the love that John had given her so freely, so openly.
In a flash of anger, and desperation, Faye ripped the pillow from behind her head, and sent it hurtling toward an unused IV stand in the corner, setting the metal rocking and the useless tubes swaying back and forth. She gritted her teeth and balled her fists as a wave of pain, that had nothing to do with her ever-present headache, wracked her body. It took her a second to realize that the desperate sobs that rang through her ears were her own.
Lansing-Medcalf.
The building was a metal monument to progress. Funny thought, considering the architectural design was based on 20th century skyscrapers. But there it was, the glass of a thousand windows gleaming under the hot Martian sun, reflecting the glowing orb back into the eyes of any onlookers, like a faceted jewel. And indeed it was a jewel, the jewel of illegal genetic research. The compound was the envy of all other syndicates, even the Red Dragon had nothing to compare to it.
He should know.
Inside it was cold, sterile, oppressive, the middle floors anyway. That's where the labs were, the labs, and the scientists quarters. The bottom two floors were dummy labs and receptionist desks and tour guides, all for the purpose of maintaining the image of an agricultural research facility.
The top floors were different too. He'd never been to the top floors, those floors were reserved for Dimitri, so he could be close to his pet project.
Corbin frowned, if indeed Dimitri had abducted Jet's friend, she would be on those levels. But he'd already shared that information with the old bounty hunter, who had in turn passed it along to... well, Corbin wasn't totally sure, but this person seemed to be a close friend of the both of them, and was right now helping Jet formulate a plan to enter the building, and rescue the damsel in distress.
Hell, more and more, Corbin was beginning to feel like he was trapped in some sort of demented fairy-tale. He smiled in amusement. They had the princess, the ogre, the tower, the electronic wizard, the knight in shinning armor (himself, naturally), and a weird case of mistaken identity... all they needed now was a huge black dragon shooting flames 100 feet into the air from on top of the Lansing-Medcalf building.
His smile quickly dissolved. Tomorrow they were heading inside those walls.
He swallowed a lump of something he assumed was fear, and turned his gaze to the cracked pavement of the sidewalk below him. I galled him to find out that he was afraid to return inside those walls, but he had to, he knew. He'd made his metal-armed employer promise to pay him for his services, and what he wanted most could only be obtained on the other side of those plexi-glass panes.
"Freedom." He tasted its sound on his lips, he rolled it over his tongue, he felt it drip like sweet honey down the back of his throat. It tasted wonderful. To be really and truly free, to not worry about who was chasing him, when they'd find him, what they'd do to him... always making just enough money so he could leave...
He would be free.
But first he had to face Dimitri.
Sometimes Irma hated Dimitri. He was cold, angry, sadistic... She shook her head as she knelt beside his "guest." When Dimitri had brought her in the other night, Irma had recognized her immediately as the woman who had attacked his starship and fled. Irma had been on the bridge with Dimitri, she went almost everywhere he did, and she'd seen this woman take on impossible odds and defy him.
She had instantly held a tremendous amount of respect for the woman, even looked up to her in a way, but tonight, after Dimitri had left here, Irma had listened outside the door while the woman had cried heart-wrenching sobs into the thick walls. Eventually, the woman had cried herself into another feverish sleep.
Irma wasn't sure what Dimitri had said to make this woman, this strong woman, react so, but she knew it had been something incredibly painful.
Sometimes she hated him... but all too often, she loved him.
"Can you teach me how to turn him away?" she asked the sleeping figure.
Irma dabbed cool water on the already sweat-drenched head of the unconscious woman lying before her. She leaned over and ran the cloth once more under the cool water before turning it off.
She tugged with all her might, but wasn't quite strong enough to turn it off. She was never quite able to turn this faucet off. She sighed as the sound of the dripping water filled the room.
The woman's name Irma knew almost as well as her own. Better than her own actually, it was a name that always seemed to be on Dimitri's lips, lately.
Irma wrung the rag out and held it under the slowly dripping faucet for a while. She could have turned it the rest of the way on, she supposed, but, just then, she lacked the desire. She waited until the little rag had soaked up all it could, then began dabbing once again.
Faye was her name.
Faye's eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, she thought everything... the phone call for the job offer, the meeting with Kataki, the search, the kidnapping... everything was just one crazy dream. But as her eyes focused on the bleach white walls around her, she knew that she hadn't been dreaming. She shut her eyes again quickly trying to escape back into her dreams.
No such luck.
A slight rustling from the other end of the room alerted Faye to the presence of another, and she shot up in bed, reaching instinctively for the gun that she knew wasn't there.
"Who the hell are you?" Faye asked, rather harshly, the napping form of a young woman in the corner of the room. She was short with a slight build and thick, dark hair that curled around her face. Faye thought that she could probably snap this woman in half without even trying.
The noise seemed to startle her, because instead of simply waking up, she leapt to her feet and began looking around like a scared doe. She managed a groggy, "huh?" before her eyes came to rest upon Faye, sitting straight up in bed.
A shy smile touched her lips, and she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I see your headaches gone."
Her voice had lost the matronly quality, she assumed, about the time that Faye lost her headache, but she was almost positive that this was the woman who had been at her bedside the first time she awoke. The faint scent of lavender confirmed Faye's suspicions, and she let out a sigh of relief.
"Never mind," she mumbled, becoming suddenly aware of a painful growling in her stomach. How long had it been since she'd eaten? She wondered.
"Hey, what's a girl gotta do to get some grub around here?" Faye managed in a gruff voice.
"Oh, of course," she said, brightening immediately. The mothering tones returned as she said, "you haven't eaten in almost 36 hours. I imagine you should be practically starving." With that the woman strode off calling, "I'll be back," over her shoulder.
John jerked awake at the sound of the doorbell, and for a brief second imagined it was her, that she had returned to him. Only for a second, then he reminded himself that he hadn't heard a single word from her in almost a week, and that she had definitely seemed nervous at the thought of their impending nuptials. He clenched his jaw with the cold, harsh reality that she was probably never coming back, and threw open the door.
He first mistook the pair standing in his doorframe as sales men. He let out an exasperated sigh, and began closing the door with a muttered "I don't want any," one of the men stuck his toe in between the frame and the door, preventing him from shutting them out.
"Oh, I think you'll want what we're selling." He said, and patted the bulge in his jacket for emphasis.
John shook his head, "what has she gotten into this time?"
Jet rubbed his tired eyes, and took a long pull off his cigarette before placing it back into the ashtray next to his computer screen. Ed was a computer genius, she had managed to get him a copy of the building schematics for the Lansing-Medcalf building, but she wasn't the tactical wizard, it wasn't up to her to take the information he gathered, and turn it into a viable plan, that was his job, and just now, he was having difficulty living up to the responsibility.
"Anything yet?"
Jet closed his eyes, "not a thing, Sp... Corbin," he blushed a little at the slip, but continued as if nothing had happened. "Not a thing. Their security is so tight, I doubt a fly can flap its wings unnoticed in there."
He slammed down the screen of his laptop in frustration.
"Really?" Corbin asked, in a slightly mocking tone, "do you mind if I take a look?"
Jet snorted, "be my guest."
Spike had never been one for planning, and he had been terrible with computers, so Jet nearly fell off his chair when her heard the words, "I've got it," exiting Corbin's lips.
Jet had expected him to get frustrated and kick the computer, like... like Spike would have. He often forgot that this double was not his Spike. Sometimes he forgot that 'his' Spike was dead.
Faye paced her room. Back and forth, back and forth, like a caged animal.
Her food was eaten hours ago, and the woman, whom Faye had discovered was named Irma, had even brought her a change of clothes. Faye now wore a tight fitting purple and black jumpsuit.
She hadn't heard from Dimitri in a while, but she was still alive, so she could only assume that negotiations were still open. That meant he'd be back.
She chewed her lip nervously, and steeled herself to come face to face with the human snake once again.
A few moments later when the door opened to admit her captor, she was prepare to face him.
"Okay, we can't come in from the ground, too much security, but we can't come in from the top, because the laser system protects the roof, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, the targeting system is computer controlled, we can get our friend to disable them just long enough for one craft to land on the roof, and drop off a passenger."
"But won't they notice that their laser system isn't working?" Jet asked, apprehensively.
"No."
"No?"
"No. Because you will be causing a diversion on the ground floor, something big, something that will take all eyes off the roof." Corbin said with a devious grin.
Jet gave him a quizzical look, "have you done this before?"
"You see my dear it's really quite simple..." Dimitri was saying.
But Faye was having trouble focusing on what he was saying. All she knew was that it had come down to a choice, a very difficult choice. John... or the double. Faye didn't notice the exact moment he finished speaking, in fact, she was pretty sure the room sat in silence for a long time before she realized it was her turn to speak.
She sunk down onto the foot of the bed.
"Come on, it's pretty simple, either find Corbin for us, or kiss your fiancé goodbye."
She placed her head in her hands, and mumbled low.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I said 'I'll do it'" she snapped.
"I thought you'd see it my way."
Faye barely restrained herself from throttling him then and there. She hated him, his smug attitude, his cold, beady eyes, stealing the life from the air around him... she longed to shut those eyes, permanently.
"You'll probably need this," he said, tossing Faye her bracelet.
Faye caught it, and clutched it to her chest like her lost child.
"We had your ship towed out of orbit around Venus, it's in the hangar of that big black starship, circling us right now. Go ahead, hit the button, we can be on the roof in time to meet it."
Dimitri's brow furrowed in frustration, as he closed the door to the lovely Miss Valentine's room. His ears still rang with her refusals, even after he'd threatened her with bodily harm. Honestly, the woman could be so unreasonable. Couldn't she see how much easier this would be for every one if she just gave in? Surely she knew that he couldn't allow her to live otherwise, she had defied him, after all.
Well, threats to her own well being wouldn't work, but maybe there was some one else she cared about... some one she was close to... a relative perhaps, or a colleague... a lover? What was it Faye Valentine, bounty hunter extraordinaire, care about?
Faye breathed a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut behind Dimitri. A shudder went through her body as she recalled the glint in his eye as he held his knife to her throat, and the smiled of pure enjoyment that graced his features. She knew a true sadist when she saw one, and she could tell he fit the bill, with his cold eyes searching hers hungrily, and the cool raspiness of his voice. She shuddered uncontrollably at the thought of being at his mercy. She hadn't been afraid like this since she'd been captured by Viscous.
Vicious... she stiffened at the thought; the name still sent a shiver up her spine, even after all these years. And it still brought sent a pang through her chest, because of the other name that had become permanently associated with it. It was that name that wandered to her lips, and she let herself say it. Just once. Just because it gave her strength.
"Spike." She whispered shakily... it all came back to Spike. Why couldn't he ever just die when he died? Why did he always have to haunt her, always have to invade her thoughts... it seemed like his name was always on her lips.
Faye smoothed her hair with her damp palm and chewed the offending protrusion. Her lips, the traitors that whispered painful words into the cold white walls around her.
Maybe... Maybe she should help Dimitri. If she helped him find the double... well, when confronted with Corbin, she'd see that he wasn't Spike, right? Maybe then she'd see how silly it was for her to cling to the hope that he might still be out there. Maybe then she could close the door to the past... even if he was still alive, he didn't love her, after all.
And maybe then, she could find a way to be happy and return the love that John had given her so freely, so openly.
In a flash of anger, and desperation, Faye ripped the pillow from behind her head, and sent it hurtling toward an unused IV stand in the corner, setting the metal rocking and the useless tubes swaying back and forth. She gritted her teeth and balled her fists as a wave of pain, that had nothing to do with her ever-present headache, wracked her body. It took her a second to realize that the desperate sobs that rang through her ears were her own.
Lansing-Medcalf.
The building was a metal monument to progress. Funny thought, considering the architectural design was based on 20th century skyscrapers. But there it was, the glass of a thousand windows gleaming under the hot Martian sun, reflecting the glowing orb back into the eyes of any onlookers, like a faceted jewel. And indeed it was a jewel, the jewel of illegal genetic research. The compound was the envy of all other syndicates, even the Red Dragon had nothing to compare to it.
He should know.
Inside it was cold, sterile, oppressive, the middle floors anyway. That's where the labs were, the labs, and the scientists quarters. The bottom two floors were dummy labs and receptionist desks and tour guides, all for the purpose of maintaining the image of an agricultural research facility.
The top floors were different too. He'd never been to the top floors, those floors were reserved for Dimitri, so he could be close to his pet project.
Corbin frowned, if indeed Dimitri had abducted Jet's friend, she would be on those levels. But he'd already shared that information with the old bounty hunter, who had in turn passed it along to... well, Corbin wasn't totally sure, but this person seemed to be a close friend of the both of them, and was right now helping Jet formulate a plan to enter the building, and rescue the damsel in distress.
Hell, more and more, Corbin was beginning to feel like he was trapped in some sort of demented fairy-tale. He smiled in amusement. They had the princess, the ogre, the tower, the electronic wizard, the knight in shinning armor (himself, naturally), and a weird case of mistaken identity... all they needed now was a huge black dragon shooting flames 100 feet into the air from on top of the Lansing-Medcalf building.
His smile quickly dissolved. Tomorrow they were heading inside those walls.
He swallowed a lump of something he assumed was fear, and turned his gaze to the cracked pavement of the sidewalk below him. I galled him to find out that he was afraid to return inside those walls, but he had to, he knew. He'd made his metal-armed employer promise to pay him for his services, and what he wanted most could only be obtained on the other side of those plexi-glass panes.
"Freedom." He tasted its sound on his lips, he rolled it over his tongue, he felt it drip like sweet honey down the back of his throat. It tasted wonderful. To be really and truly free, to not worry about who was chasing him, when they'd find him, what they'd do to him... always making just enough money so he could leave...
He would be free.
But first he had to face Dimitri.
Sometimes Irma hated Dimitri. He was cold, angry, sadistic... She shook her head as she knelt beside his "guest." When Dimitri had brought her in the other night, Irma had recognized her immediately as the woman who had attacked his starship and fled. Irma had been on the bridge with Dimitri, she went almost everywhere he did, and she'd seen this woman take on impossible odds and defy him.
She had instantly held a tremendous amount of respect for the woman, even looked up to her in a way, but tonight, after Dimitri had left here, Irma had listened outside the door while the woman had cried heart-wrenching sobs into the thick walls. Eventually, the woman had cried herself into another feverish sleep.
Irma wasn't sure what Dimitri had said to make this woman, this strong woman, react so, but she knew it had been something incredibly painful.
Sometimes she hated him... but all too often, she loved him.
"Can you teach me how to turn him away?" she asked the sleeping figure.
Irma dabbed cool water on the already sweat-drenched head of the unconscious woman lying before her. She leaned over and ran the cloth once more under the cool water before turning it off.
She tugged with all her might, but wasn't quite strong enough to turn it off. She was never quite able to turn this faucet off. She sighed as the sound of the dripping water filled the room.
The woman's name Irma knew almost as well as her own. Better than her own actually, it was a name that always seemed to be on Dimitri's lips, lately.
Irma wrung the rag out and held it under the slowly dripping faucet for a while. She could have turned it the rest of the way on, she supposed, but, just then, she lacked the desire. She waited until the little rag had soaked up all it could, then began dabbing once again.
Faye was her name.
Faye's eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, she thought everything... the phone call for the job offer, the meeting with Kataki, the search, the kidnapping... everything was just one crazy dream. But as her eyes focused on the bleach white walls around her, she knew that she hadn't been dreaming. She shut her eyes again quickly trying to escape back into her dreams.
No such luck.
A slight rustling from the other end of the room alerted Faye to the presence of another, and she shot up in bed, reaching instinctively for the gun that she knew wasn't there.
"Who the hell are you?" Faye asked, rather harshly, the napping form of a young woman in the corner of the room. She was short with a slight build and thick, dark hair that curled around her face. Faye thought that she could probably snap this woman in half without even trying.
The noise seemed to startle her, because instead of simply waking up, she leapt to her feet and began looking around like a scared doe. She managed a groggy, "huh?" before her eyes came to rest upon Faye, sitting straight up in bed.
A shy smile touched her lips, and she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I see your headaches gone."
Her voice had lost the matronly quality, she assumed, about the time that Faye lost her headache, but she was almost positive that this was the woman who had been at her bedside the first time she awoke. The faint scent of lavender confirmed Faye's suspicions, and she let out a sigh of relief.
"Never mind," she mumbled, becoming suddenly aware of a painful growling in her stomach. How long had it been since she'd eaten? She wondered.
"Hey, what's a girl gotta do to get some grub around here?" Faye managed in a gruff voice.
"Oh, of course," she said, brightening immediately. The mothering tones returned as she said, "you haven't eaten in almost 36 hours. I imagine you should be practically starving." With that the woman strode off calling, "I'll be back," over her shoulder.
John jerked awake at the sound of the doorbell, and for a brief second imagined it was her, that she had returned to him. Only for a second, then he reminded himself that he hadn't heard a single word from her in almost a week, and that she had definitely seemed nervous at the thought of their impending nuptials. He clenched his jaw with the cold, harsh reality that she was probably never coming back, and threw open the door.
He first mistook the pair standing in his doorframe as sales men. He let out an exasperated sigh, and began closing the door with a muttered "I don't want any," one of the men stuck his toe in between the frame and the door, preventing him from shutting them out.
"Oh, I think you'll want what we're selling." He said, and patted the bulge in his jacket for emphasis.
John shook his head, "what has she gotten into this time?"
Jet rubbed his tired eyes, and took a long pull off his cigarette before placing it back into the ashtray next to his computer screen. Ed was a computer genius, she had managed to get him a copy of the building schematics for the Lansing-Medcalf building, but she wasn't the tactical wizard, it wasn't up to her to take the information he gathered, and turn it into a viable plan, that was his job, and just now, he was having difficulty living up to the responsibility.
"Anything yet?"
Jet closed his eyes, "not a thing, Sp... Corbin," he blushed a little at the slip, but continued as if nothing had happened. "Not a thing. Their security is so tight, I doubt a fly can flap its wings unnoticed in there."
He slammed down the screen of his laptop in frustration.
"Really?" Corbin asked, in a slightly mocking tone, "do you mind if I take a look?"
Jet snorted, "be my guest."
Spike had never been one for planning, and he had been terrible with computers, so Jet nearly fell off his chair when her heard the words, "I've got it," exiting Corbin's lips.
Jet had expected him to get frustrated and kick the computer, like... like Spike would have. He often forgot that this double was not his Spike. Sometimes he forgot that 'his' Spike was dead.
Faye paced her room. Back and forth, back and forth, like a caged animal.
Her food was eaten hours ago, and the woman, whom Faye had discovered was named Irma, had even brought her a change of clothes. Faye now wore a tight fitting purple and black jumpsuit.
She hadn't heard from Dimitri in a while, but she was still alive, so she could only assume that negotiations were still open. That meant he'd be back.
She chewed her lip nervously, and steeled herself to come face to face with the human snake once again.
A few moments later when the door opened to admit her captor, she was prepare to face him.
"Okay, we can't come in from the ground, too much security, but we can't come in from the top, because the laser system protects the roof, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, the targeting system is computer controlled, we can get our friend to disable them just long enough for one craft to land on the roof, and drop off a passenger."
"But won't they notice that their laser system isn't working?" Jet asked, apprehensively.
"No."
"No?"
"No. Because you will be causing a diversion on the ground floor, something big, something that will take all eyes off the roof." Corbin said with a devious grin.
Jet gave him a quizzical look, "have you done this before?"
"You see my dear it's really quite simple..." Dimitri was saying.
But Faye was having trouble focusing on what he was saying. All she knew was that it had come down to a choice, a very difficult choice. John... or the double. Faye didn't notice the exact moment he finished speaking, in fact, she was pretty sure the room sat in silence for a long time before she realized it was her turn to speak.
She sunk down onto the foot of the bed.
"Come on, it's pretty simple, either find Corbin for us, or kiss your fiancé goodbye."
She placed her head in her hands, and mumbled low.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I said 'I'll do it'" she snapped.
"I thought you'd see it my way."
Faye barely restrained herself from throttling him then and there. She hated him, his smug attitude, his cold, beady eyes, stealing the life from the air around him... she longed to shut those eyes, permanently.
"You'll probably need this," he said, tossing Faye her bracelet.
Faye caught it, and clutched it to her chest like her lost child.
"We had your ship towed out of orbit around Venus, it's in the hangar of that big black starship, circling us right now. Go ahead, hit the button, we can be on the roof in time to meet it."