Chapter2: You'll Never Take Me Alive!
Purple stared. Well, what else could he do? Here it was, the middle of the night, and he was sitting in Red's bed with a naked sobbing woman who was telling him that Red was dead. But how? The Resisty? Could they have managed to get an assassin on board the Massive?
Backing away from the woman slowly, Purple eased a laser out of his ID Pak. If there was an assassin on board, this female was the most likely candidate. The tears had to be a trick! Sure enough, when the woman noticed the laser, the tears stopped. 'Soldier training,' Purple realized. Only a soldier's training would get a hysterical person to calm down by having a weapon pointed at them. Soldiers understood weapons.
The woman - Purple still didn't know her name, nor did he particularly care to at the moment - wiped the last few tears from her face and stared evenly at Purple. "Put the laser up." Her voice was calm and warm, a vibrant contralto, but something in her tone told Purple that she was used to being obeyed.
Purple kept the laser steady. No way was he going to put his weapon up while in the same room as an assassin. "Where's Red?" he snarled. Maybe he should call in the guards to deal with her. They would probably be better interrogators.
Purple had never seen anyone look both sad and amused at the same time until the woman smiled at Purple. "I told you already," she sighed, shoulders slumping. "He died. Years ago."
Red had died years ago? Impossible! Just that morning Red had dumped jello down Purple's robes! Red couldn't have been dead for years, unless... "Are you Red's daughter from the future who's come back to save him?" Well, sure, it was a long shot, but it was the only thing that made sense. Purple lowered his laser so that it wasn't pointing at any vital organs. If this woman was Red's future daughter - which would explain why she looked so much like him - then Red might not like it if she got shot.
The woman squinted at Purple as if she couldn't believe what he'd just said. Finally, moving slowly, the woman placed her hand on top of the bedside table. Again Purple aimed the laser right where it would shoot through the woman's ID Pak. But the woman merely held up a black square patch which she placed against her throat. The patch changed color, blending in with the woman's flawless emerald skin. "That has got to be the craziest thing you've ever come up with, Purple." Red's voice unmistakably came out of the woman's mouth.
Purple did the only sensible thing he could. He fainted.