For the first hour of the convention Sydney mostly ate and chatted with her new friends. The speaker had come on and off, mostly talking about different forms of women law enforcement. At the moment they were taking a short break, Syd took this as an opportunity to get to know her new pals. They were all very nice, and she found herself particularly liking the quiet Catlin and the tough Megan. Most of the people she met so far were just regular police officers, in fact, she hadn't met any other rangers so far. Syd knew it was tough to become a ranger, but she couldn't help but wonder if it was because they were women.

Just as Sydney was about to ask if any of them had ever considered becoming a ranger, a nice looking woman stepped onto the stage.

"Hello, and welcome again to the Women Law Enforcement Convention. I know for a lot of you this is your first year here and I hope you're enjoying yourselves. Though I do recognize some old faces! Now, I'm not sure if you know this, but this is the tenth annual Women Law Enforcement Convention!"

There was a round of applause and a few cheers before the woman continued,

"I'm happy to report that this year we have quite a few more women attending, with more diverse jobs. The majority of us here, including myself, are police officers. This year we not only have police officers, but also a few F.B.I. agents, some sheriffs, and even a Texas Ranger!!"

There was an applause again, and Sydney felt herself blush ever so slightly. She had noticed how the speaker said "a" texas ranger, as in only one. And she knew who that one was. Herself.

"Now then," the speaker said, "how about we have on representative from each group of law enforcement to tell us what it like."

Sydney felt her stomach tie up into a large knot, there was only one representative from the Texas Ranger's, herself. That meant she would have to go up and speak. She didn't have stage fright, but she would have liked some warning ahead!

"Would someone from each group please come up to the stage? Don't be shy now."

Sydney looked to her friends pleadingly and they smiled encouragingly.

"You'll do fine!" Carey smiled.

"Don't worry 'bout it!" Charlene said, still in an ear piercing accent.

"If it makes you feel any better," Caitlin offered, "I'll go up to."

Sydney was surprised, nice as Caitlin was, she came off as a very shy and quiet woman.

"If you're sure." Syd said, not wanting to put her on the spot.

"It will be fun." Caitlin replied.

So they both got up and headed to the stage where two other women were already standing.

First an F.B.I. agent spoke. Her name was Sarah, she spoke of drug busts every other day, undercover operations weekly, and constant danger. Sydney knew by the gasps and awes of the audience that the F.B.I. agent held the most exciting job. She herself found herself bored every now and then with nothing to do but paperwork.

Next was a police officer named Jen. Her job wasn't nearly as exciting as Sarah's, but still sounded appealing. Sydney still remembered the days when she was considering becoming a police woman herself. That is, until she discovered the Texas Rangers and knew that was what she was meant to do.

Then went up the shy Caitlin.

"Hi everyone," she spoke shyly into the microphone, "my name is Caitlin and I'm a sheriff."

Syd forced herself not to open he mouth in shock. She had never pictured Caitlin to be a sheriff type. True, she had only known her a little over an hour, but she appeared so quiet and shy. She didn't seem to possess the type of assertiveness needed to be a sheriff.

But as Caitlin continued to talk into the mic, she spoke with more confidence. It didn't take long for Syd to realize that Caitlin was a natural born leader. She wondered where Caitlin's quiet side had come from, and how someone so confident could seem so shy.

Sydney was so distracted in her thoughts that she almost forgot her Q to go up the mic. She walked up to where Caitlin had once been standing, took a deep breath, smiled widely, and confidently said,

"Hi, my name is Sydney Cooke, and I'm a Texas Ranger. As you've probably noticed, I'm the only ranger here. Personally, I don't know of any other women rangers in my department. But nether the less, I love my job! I haven't even been a ranger for two years yet, but I've sure learned a lot. We do all sorts of different things, kind of a mixture of what everyone said. I remember my first assignment that lasted nine months; I went undercover with my partner, Ranger Gage, to take down a drug operation. But personally, I prefer just regular old kicking butt."

The audience laughed, Syd silently sighed in relief.

"We do a lot of things regular police officers do, just take down ordinary crimes such as robberies, kidnapping, and drug dealing. I believe that-"

Sydney stopped mid sentence, she squinted her eyes to get a closer look at the main entrance the the could have sworn she saw something, she decided to ignore it and continued,

"I believe that a Ranger's work is never really done. I'm sure a lot of you also feel that you never really take off your badge for the day, even after work hours. A ranger's job is continuous-"

Sydney stopped again, despite the slight whispers of the crowd. This time she was sure she saw or heard something by the door. She was beginning to get a bad feeling, and she always got this same bad feeling right before something bad happened. Usually she ignored her feeling, and that never ended well for her. She had gotten a bad feeling right before the car had exploded in Mexico, she ended up getting kidnapped. She had gotten a bad feeling shortly after she had started her trip to see the White Buffalo skull, she had gotten shot. Something in the back of her mind was telling her to take action, now. But she couldn't very well do so while she was on stage.

Syd cleared her throat and said,

"A ranger's job is continuous. And I-"

This time Sydney wasn't the only one to look to the back of the room. The large door had been swung open and several large men in waiter uniforms entered bringing trays. They slammed the doors behind him and the room erupted into whispers. Their host stepped in front of Syd and said into the mic,

"Excuse me gentlemen, but we don't start our lunch break for another hour. If you could please-"

This time she was interrupted by a louder noise. This time, it was the noise of gunfire. Suddenly there was panic and screaming from within the room. Sydney watched in horror as the men turned around and took out large guns from under their trays. They shot randomly into the crowd as most of the women headed for under the tables. But there were a few women, including Syd, whose training kicked in and reached for their guns. But before Syd could do anything, she watched as her new friend Megan pulled out her gun and aimed it at one of the men, but before she fired the shot another man shot her in the arm, causing her to fall back in pain.

The men locked all the doors of the windowless auditorium as the yells and shots continued to go on. Sydney began to leap from the stage but was stopped when an approaching man aimed his gun at her chest and yelled,

"You and everyone else on that stage stay where you are or you're all dead! Drop your guns!"

Syd reluctantly did as she was told, placing her gun on the ground and backing up to behind the podium. The next ten minutes seemed like a blur to Syd, there were about twenty men in the room and about 70 women or so. It seemed in seconds the majority of the guests were tied to their chairs and the screams quieting down. Somehow, someway, the men were able to get the upper hand and take over the room. A few minutes later, Sydney's blood went cold as one of the men, who appeared the be the leader, walked onto the stage to where she was standing.

He said coldly, with no emotion what so ever,

"Sit down."

Sydney carefully sat down in the chair on the stage, next to where the 4 other women were already seated and beginning to get tied up. As Sydney's hands were tied to the chair behind her back Caitlin asked in barely a whisper,

"Who do you think these guys are?"

Before Syd could answer the leader stepped up and spoke into the microphone with a wicked smile on his face,

"Hello, and welcome to the new, and the last, Women Law Enforcement Convention."

There were a few yells, and a gunshot. The yells ended.

"Now then," the man continued, "I bet you're wondering who we are. Well, you can continue to wonder because you're not going to find out. Let's first make one thing perfectly clear, you are all going to die. Plain and simple, every single one of you. What do we have against you? Nothing. But there are people who do have things against you, and these people pay very very well."

Suddenly, Syd remembered something Walker had mentioned. This new group they were after called "The Eliminators". They eliminated entire groups of people for no reason at all, could these people Walker was talking about?

"But," the leader continued, "we were paid extra well to, before we kill you, teach you some things about women. According to the great man who hired us, women are stupid. And women should not being doing crazy things such law enforcement!"

His men laughed, but Sydney couldn't understand why. The way this man talked, it sounded like whoever had hired him had practically written the speech he was about to give himself. And the more Syd thought about it, the more she realized her probably did.

The leader was about to continue in his speech when suddenly there was a noise throughout the auditorium. It wasn't too loud, but was persistent. It was a ringing sound, coming from Sydney's pocket.

Syd's cell phone was ringing.