Lady Lara Croft, you fought to get a review through?! I'm impressed! Hee Hee, have some virtual chocolate cake. :-) Thankyou!
Ok, since things are hotting up now and I have this habit of referring back to details that I know you'll all have forgotten since they were mentioned a gazillions chapters ago, here's a quick recap of everything important that's gone on:
Kurtis kidnapped Lara and 'sold her' to a top secret government organisation called The Company, who want to use Lara to kill a dangerous cult leader. She is to use a weapon called The Periapt Tip, originally part of a mystical spear head that could kill gods, but in doing so it will drain her life force and kill her. Kurtis and The Company, led by Cheney, lied to her about their true reasons for kidnapping her, but when she realised something was wrong and escaped, Kurtis went to recapture her and was forced to tell her the truth. She and Kurtis are now working together in order to stop Lara being killed and to steal the Tip so that Kurtis, as last of the Lux Veritatis and thus true heir to the role of protector of the Tip, can keep it safe from the corrupt Cheney and, he feels, go some way to redeeming himself in the eyes of his father, with whom we saw in the previous two stories he had a very tempestuous relationship. Lara still feels that Kurtis is lying to her about something, however. Meanwhile, Bryce and Hillary are on their way to Tokyo on the trail of the accidentally auctioned Dagger of Xian. Confused? Yes, so am I....
Already Divided, Soon To Be Conquered
It was Lara's quick thinking that saved them. Dashing forwards, she reached up and snatched the cover off a ventilation shaft, throwing it down. She jumped up and grabbed hold of the edge of the metal walled tunnel and pulled herself up, tumbling inside and turning quickly in the cramped space to grab the cover off Kurtis as he held it up to her and then took his hand and hauled him up to join her. He snatched the cover back off her and just managed to replace it before footsteps approaching rapidly manifested themselves as a medical team scattering around the corner, wheeling gurneys and running towards the entrances some distance away.
Kurtis' breath whistled softly against the grating as the metal cleaved the air, demonstrating his ragged respiration of fright and recovery as he stared down on the corridor at the spot where they had just been. Lara sat behind him, her head against the wall, her eyes closed, her knees brought up to her chest, willing the adrenaline in her system to fade away. She opened her eyes and tilted her head to the side to look at him and swallowed.
"Are you ok?"
He nodded, eyes still fixed on the view outside of the shaft. Cheney stalked past, his manner determined and commanding. Kurtis watched him go and then turned to stare at Lara. At first she thought he just didn't quite know what to do next, but then she saw through the gloom the dangerous look in his eyes and she knew that she was about to have an argument on her hands.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" His voice was a fierce whisper, a ranting shout curbed in an effort to prevent their discovery.
Lara blinked, unsure what she'd done wrong. "I'm sorry?"
"If we'd stayed in the corridor I could have talked our way out of it, but now we're in here, if we're caught, there's absolutely nothing I can say to explain it." He was resting on his haunches and balancing on his toes, as challenging a position as the shaft would allow, and his back was to the grating, cutting off most of the available light and leaving Lara in a dark, cramped, claustrophobic space that only added to her horror at his sudden tirade that had come just when she thought they were getting on so well. Submissive she was not, though, and she got to her knees and spat back a retort with as much quiet vengeance as she could muster.
"This is my fault, is it? I forced you up here, did I? I'm sorry, but I rather thought that you followed me in here!"
"Oh, like I had a choice! You were already half way in before I realised what you doing! What am I supposed to do? Stand in the corridor and then explain to Cheney why we're arguing over whether or not to hide in the ventilation shaft?"
Lara's eyed narrowed and she fixed Kurtis with a look that barely warned against the full extent of the danger implied in her voice when she said, "There's more going on here than you're letting on. Something about you doesn't quite add up, and now that the cult leader is here and our time is up, I'm no longer prepared to hang around waiting to find out the truth. Goodbye, Kurtis. A pleasure, as always."
Her forearm came to his throat and shoved him back against the wall, where it pressed ever harder, cutting off his air supply. He grabbed at her arm, choking, his eyes confused and pleading, but she pressed only harder, until he lapsed into unconsciousness and fell limp against the floor of the shaft. She checked his pulse and assured herself he was breathing easily, and then, smiling wryly to herself as she stole his keycard, turned and crawled off down the ventilation shaft.
It was only a few minutes later when Kurtis came round, blinking himself back to lucidity and looking around to remind himself where he was and what had happened. His hand immediately went to his pocket to check on his keycard.
"That bitch," he swore to himself when he felt nothing there.
If there was one thing Lara had learned over the years, it was mapping unknown areas unconsciously, vital for a quick escape. She followed her instincts to navigate the ventilation shafts to get as close to the exit corridor as she could and then to her delight, looked out through another grating to find herself directly above the exit corridor, empty and inviting.
Kurtis scrambled to his knees and checked the coast was clear before kicking off the ventilation grating and dropping to the ground. Even as he landed he was looking left and right for signs of anyone around before he took off down the corridor, sprinting for the exits.
Lara flipped herself forward out of the ventilation shaft, landing neatly and lightly with knees bent and feet apart, frozen in place as she listened for sounds of approaching Company agents. None came, and so, smiling triumphantly, she fingered the stolen keycard, tripping lightly over to the nearest exit door.
Kurtis flew down the corridors, skidding to halts with his arms flailing for balance as he reached corners, chest heaving and mouth open as he dashed to cut Lara off.
The cult mission team had already moved on and the exit door swished open to reveal an empty, shadowy car park populated only by their Jeep. Lara laughed quietly to herself and put a foot outside the door.
"CROFT!" Kurtis rounded a corner and bellowed as he saw Lara stepping out of the open doorway. Startled, she turned to see him bearing down on her. Lara turned and ran, taking off across the car park at breakneck speed towards the Jeep. The door began to close behind her and Kurtis, never slowing for a second, thrust out his arm towards it, shoving his hand through the air in a mimed action of forcing the door back into its housing, the resulting action of his telekinesis sending the metal door slamming back into the innards of the wall, contacting with a clanging crash, sparks flying from friction and shorted electrics. The door bounced back from the impact, sliding along its runnings back towards its closed position as Kurtis darted through, twisting sideways to make it through the rapidly closing gap. The din forced Lara to look back over her shoulder as she ran, costing her vital seconds as her new perspective sent her curving away from the Jeep, a mistake she corrected too late.
Her skewed path took her too far away from the car, and just as she was about to reach forward towards the door, a weight landing on her back sent her crashing to the ground, twisting as she fell in an attempt to escape. Kurtis had tackled her, and they hit the ground hard, his arms pinning her own to her sides, he landing on top of her, her ankle scraping painfully against the ground, her knee grazing against the concrete, her head banging sharply and dizzyingly against the floor. They lay there, Lara winded by the double impact of Kurtis' weight and the ground, and Kurtis drawing in deep lungfuls of air in an effort to catch his breath.
"Dammit, Croft," he growled, the anger clear in his countenance but underlain by something approaching humour, "you're nothing but trouble." The humour broke through, then, as he hauled her to her feet, forcing her cooperation but still not appearing rough. "Come on," he said, sounding like a parent that has just had to return a child to bed after they've crept back out just like they do every evening, "back to the nice Company Headquarters."
Lara voiced her protest through wordless complaints and constant struggles, but Kurtis had her securely captive, and the scene, comical to the outside viewer, elicited more than a few smiles as he bodily carried her, feet never quite touching the floor, back to her quarters. The door was opened upon their arrival by a waiting guard, the expression on his face one of clear wonderment at the situation, and Kurtis strode straight in, throwing Lara onto the bed where she bounced a few times and glared. The guard still had the door open, staring after them with interest, and Kurtis moved over to him and plucked a small black pouch off the guard's belt. Lara sat on the bed, knowing escape was now impossible, as he opened the pouch and removed a small syringe.
"Oh no you don't!" She scrambled off the bed and dodged away but found herself backed into a corner; obviously no escape but she wasn't going willingly.
"Then quit running away, ok?" Trent strode around the bed, grabbed Lara's arm and pulled it outwards, exposing the underside of her forearm. "Relax, it's just a sedative." He waved the syringe in front of her. "If you didn't cause so much bother, I wouldn't be doing this. Would I?"
Lara glared.
The final few frames of the ending animation of the game played and Bryce and Hillary, tired, relieved and emotionally drained after their virtual ordeal, flopped back into their seats.
Bryce raised a weary hand and saved the game, then shut down his laptop and let his arm fall back to his lap. "That was…scary."
"I need a drink."
Bryce rolled his head to the side and looked at Hillary. "Duty free?"
Hillary returned the look and then nodded. "I think so."
The air hostess emerged from the front cabin, drinks trolley in tow.
"Excuse me!" they shouted in unison.
"Mr Cheney, Sir." The man, tall and slender, dressed in ripped jeans and a New Found Glory T-shirt with mid length sandy hair and dark brown eyes, swung his feet off the desk and leapt to standing as his boss walked in.
"You paged me?" Cheney asked.
"Yes, Sir," the man drawled. He flopped back into his chair and replaced his feet on the desk, then grabbed the keyboard off his computer and pulled it onto his lap. He started tapping commands into the computer, explaining as he did so, "Trent and Croft have been caught on surveillance. Thought you'd wanna see this."
As the final command filtered through into the computer's memory, a window opened up on the monitor and a recording of Lara and Kurtis clambering into the ventilation system played.
"Then we saw this…" Another few key taps brought up Lara dropping out of the ventilation shaft and making for the exit.
"And at the same time, this…" Kurtis chasing after her, running at full pelt through the hallways, one long recording made of the views from several different cameras.
"Culminating in this…" An exterior shot showing Kurtis diving forward and tackling Lara to the ground before picking her up and carrying her back inside.
"And the gossip mill's having a field day with this one…" A final shot edited together from several cameras showing Kurtis carrying a struggling Lara back to her quarters, under the amused gazes of several Company agents now that they were further into the heart of the building where the night shift clustered.
Cheney laughed, bouncing on his toes, and the surveillance operative sniggered. "What were they doing out of Lara's quarters?" Cheney asked.
"That's what we wondered. So we checked the logs and found that after some round about wandering, they went off camera in hall 3A, when they left the CCTV network and went into the high security wing where of course, there are no cameras. After that they didn't show up until that shot of them going into the ventilation shaft."
"So…?"
The man tapped a few more commands into his keyboard and a text file opened up showing a log of computer activity. "Once in the high security wing they somehow got into the lift and showed up checking the computer files at the main server for all information pertaining to mission mark two two niner eight RC. After that they must have dodged the cameras."
Cheney smiled again, his trademark devious smirk. "She got to him. Kurtis told her…the truth."
"Yes, Sir." The man smiled his own expression of heady power bought on by watching and knowing, like a god.
Cheney chuckled and began to leave but the man spoke. "Do you want us to start surveillance in their quarters?"
Cheney, facing the door, stopped and considered and then threw over his shoulder as he left, "No. Let them have their privacy. Might as well give them a fighting chance." He laughed again.
"Cheney! Glad I found you, Sir." At the mention of his name, Cheney turned to find Kurtis jogging up the corridor behind him. He stopped, waiting for the other man to catch up to him and then continued walking, back to his office.
"Mr Trent."
"Thought you'd like to know that Lara tried to escape. But I caught her, put her in her quarters under guard. She's sedated for the time being."
"Yes," Cheney said knowingly, "I heard. Quite a chase."
"You saw the CCTV footage, then?"
They reached Cheney's office and he lowered the door handle but paused before opening it, saying conversationally, "You won't have to worry about her for much longer. Why don't you take a stroll down to Holding Cell Three? Our newest guest is in there." He smiled pleasantly and disappeared into his office, leaving Kurtis running his hand through his hair coolly and smiling smugly, confident that he and Lara had just managed to outwit their newest nemesis.
Trent took a deep breath and then opened the door to the observation suite looking into Holding Cell Three, prepared for a reprise of the very nasty demonstration he'd had when he'd first been brought into The Company.
A scream, somewhat distorted and tinny, met his ears as he stepped inside, filling the room and spilling out into the corridor through the open door from its source in the loud speakers within. Outwardly, though, it did not affect him, and he simply closed the door behind him and moved over to the woman behind the desk, logging her observations with notes and comments as she watched the interrogation taking place in the holding cell, the audio feed providing the stomach churning soundtrack.
She looked up as he approached and offered a slight smile, but turned back to her papers and carried on scribbling down her thoughts, busy. Long blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a daring, individual dress sense, made her just the type of woman Kurtis usually took an interest in, but her ability to coolly catalogue the implications of the unfortunate prisoner's cries for mercy made her at that moment one of the most unattractive women he had ever met. He didn't show his horror, however, just closed himself off to any reaction from the scene in front of him and asked, "This is the cult leader?"
"No," she said, still watching the proceedings, "they lost him. All they managed to bring back was this one and two others. We think they're priests or something else high up in the pecking order, but this one isn't talking and out of the other two one died and the other tried to kill himself before he got caught, so he's in medical being treated for blood loss."
Kurtis sighed inwardly, raising his eyes to heaven and thanking whoever might be watching over them that they didn't have the cult leader. Until The Company had him in custody, ready for Lara to kill, and be killed herself as a result, they had a chance. "One died?" he asked, pretending to be casually interested and just as callous as the woman he was talking to.
"Heart failure. Extremely early on in the interrogation, we think he probably had heart problems."
"Lucky for him, huh?" Kurtis laughed, trying to cover his growing nausea.
The woman just looked back at him with an icy stare, unimpressed. "Unlucky for us."
Nodding in acceptance of her stern putdown, he swallowed hard and then left the room, desperately trying to keep himself together as he hurried back through the halls to Lara's room.