..Sorry it's taken so long, I basically forgot about it =/. I hope you like this one, there's not much action but it sets up a lot of plot that'll happen later. So it's a necessary evil, really:D. (This story is turning out to be so much longer than it was meant to, for which I apologise. Kinda got carried away...)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum20/HTML/000277.html")Part One.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum20/HTML/000285.html")Part Two.(/url)
Hope was woken up by his back screaming at him to move, and promptly decided that it was the last time he was going to sleep on one of his hard, extremely solid, wooden kitchen chairs. Dragging himself to his feet - taking two or three attempts to get there - he hobbled into the bathroom, and collapsed in a groggy heap in the deep well of his bath.
"Welcome, Scott. What shower setting would you prefer?" a smooth, electronic voice purred at him, putting him in mind of what a voice would sound like if it had a throat of honey and conveyor belts.
"Um, I'll have a bath this morning, I think," he groaned. Sometimes, there was just no substitute for a thorough soaking.
"Sorry, I don't understand. What shower setting would you prefer?"
"I don't want a shower. I want a bath. B - A - T - H. Bath."
"Sorry, I don't understand. What sho-." The voice was cut suddenly short as Hope slammed a fist honed to perfection by hours of one-on-ones with the punch-bag into the terminal, and twisted the cast iron taps at the head of the bed. Technology was all very good, but sometimes you just had to cut the crap and get on with it.
Quarter of an hour later - he had never been one for spending to much time grooming himself - Hope strolled confidently out of the shower, and rummaged for a pair of matching socks under the mess that seemed to substitute for a carpet. Pulling on a pair of clean boxer shorts, he strolled into his kitchen, casting an angry eye at the chair that forced him into a slightly hunched, wincing gait. And nearly fell over with shock.
Piper, looking immaculate, was sitting at the kitchen table, a spoon piled with rice krispies in one hand and a remote in the other while she roamed through the latest reports of death and disease on the holovid. She glanced at him, casting an appraising eye over his slightly damp, almost naked body.
"Um, hold on... I'm so... I'll just go and... wait a sec'... it's just..." Hope spun around and put the rest of his clothes on. Jesus! How could he forget about Piper being in his flat?
Walking back in, wearing a navy polo-neck and some black jeans, he threw two slices of bread into the toaster and leant against the kitchen counter, staring at her.
"I would have said something about there being a pile of clean socks on one of your pillows, but you seemed to be having so much fun looking for them," she winked at him.
Hope flushed red. But there were slightly more important things to deal with. "Look," he started, "we've got to tell what you know to the boffs in Rebel HQ. They'll know what to do."
Piper looked back intently. Studying her, Hope realised that she was scared. She'd been through more than most people would ever have in their lives in a couple of days. Something like that'll freak most people out, and from those wary violet eyes and the cute way she was fidgeting with her hair he could tell she was freaked. But she seemed to be holding up well, so he pressed on.
"We can't go out on the streets right now. If your story's true, then the Feds'll be crawling all over this place. You can stay here for now, but as soon as it gets dark we're going to HQ."
"Where is HQ?" Piper asked innocently. "Why didn't Sadie just send me there instead of messing around with all this Cafe sh*t?"
Hope looked at her wide open face, and smiled. "I doubt Sadie would know where HQ is. And I'm not gonna tell you either. If you wanna get there, I'm afraid you're gonna have to stick with me."
Piper looked at him ruefully. Sadie knew everything - she would bet her life that her friend would have known where Rebel HQ was. But it wasn't a matter that needed sorting out instantly, so she left it.
"Why can't you just call them?" she pressed, "I mean, you're an Admiral. You'll know the phone numbers of people pretty high up in the Rebel Hierarchy, won't you?"
"Yeah, I'll call them. But Rebel HQ's a little more worried about security than the Blue Parrot. If the Feds bust the cafe-"
"A lil' bit late for that, methinks"
"Yeah, well, if they'd busted the cafe, they'd 've got a load of kids who were willing to kill the Feds while campaigning for Animal Rights and trying to afford their rent. But if they busted HQ, then the entire Rebel Cause would be finished. Kaput. We wouldn't have a leg to stand on."
Piper looked at him, unconvinced. "So why can't you call them?"
"Well, they're not some old James Bond supergang. We still have to hide somewhere. So we hide in an old ice shipping warehouse. And Rebel Business is only done over the phone early in the morning, to try and make it a little more secure."
"How does doing it early in the morning make it more secure?" Piper still wasn't convinced. "Hoping that the Feds like a lie in?"
"Something like that. The way the phone tappings work, every area gets randomly tapped for a couple of hours a day, and we've got an insider who makes sure that we never get tapped before 10am every day. It's just safety, is all."
"Alright, alright, I getcha," muttered Piper. She looked at her shaking hand, suddenly realising what was calling this crappy sinking feeling in her stomach. "Have you got any smokes?"
Sitting alone on the rooftop of Scott's apartment block that evening - the bastard didn't let her smoke in the building, did he? - Piper wondered if her life would ever get back to normal. Was she ever gonna have to drag Sadie off'f some random hot guy in a club again? Would she ever be running odd jobs for the grocer down the road, trying to scrape enough money together for some baccy? Was there any chance that she'd even see the grocer again? Would she ever even manage to take her exams, let alone actually pass them (she was already a few years behind, and she didn't think her school would put up with her for much longer)?
Bloody Cynthia, this is all your bloody fault. Why couldn't you have gone into hyperspace behind Luke, for once?
She glared angrily at the broiling red sun that dipped below the shadows of the city. Miles above her, majestic skyscrapers blared out advertisements for some new shoe that Nikidas was making - no doubt made by kids in some shoebox in the deserts of California, Piper mooched - and she hid her eyes from the glow of the neon sign that hung just across the road from her.
Maybe she should go and get Scott. He'd probably enjoy being up here, he seemed like a nice kinda guy, if a little wound up, she figured. Why this rooftop was so abandoned, she couldn't understand. Granted, it was a dump, with old metal scaffold bars lying around all over the place and patches of oil that she'd had to dance around on her way across, but it was a quiet dump, removed from the angry sounds of the roads below. It had rained all day, and had stopped mere minutes before Piper had managed to force open the rusted, cracked door that lead to the roof. She guessed she was the first person up here for decades, probably, and it made the experience of watching the glistening drops catch the setting sunlight and illuminate everything in a golden glow all the more enjoyable. But, thanks to Cynthia and her dumb luck, Piper couldn't enjoy it, could she, not while she had the possibility of imminent death hanging over her...
Sighing, she turned around, noting the swirling colours that danced and shone in the oily footprints. Stepping over them, she squeezed through the narrow crack she'd pushed open in the door, and got halfway down the stairs before stopping dead.
Sprinting back up, Piper leaped across puddles and girders and stared at those large, glistening footprints. Like dark holes on the pristine asphalt surface of the roof, she stared at the trail they left over to the ledge at the edge of the building. Numbly, she leant over, and noted the small, blinking box that was attached just above Hope's window several floors below. Sht.
"SHT!" she screamed. They'd been bugged.
Hope was trying to decide what to do. Piper was upstairs, smoking some of her tiny cigarettes, and he wondered how far some homeless kids would go in order to get a little bit of charity. No, that couldn't be right. Piper seemed to be telling the truth. She would look at him with those big, innocent eyes and he had to say yes. But he couldn't wait until the morning to speak to a Rebel about it. He had to do something about it now!
Picking up the heavy handset of his antique phone, Hope dialled the number of his mentor, Fleet Admiral Richard Jameson. Richie was sometimes a little set in his ways, but no-one had been in the Rebellion longer than him and he had taught Hope everything he knew.
"Hello? Who is this?" The voice on the phone was gruff, like it'd just been woken up from a dream about a place that wasn't the sh*tty dump it'd woken up in"
"Richie? It's Scott here. I'm just calling abou-"
"Scottie! How are you, boy? Got yaself a ladyfriend yet? Gotta pass on those genes, ya know!"
"Yeah, well, maybe later. I'm just calling about a little incident that's happening to me right now."
"Go on..." Richie drawled, his deep Texan accent inviting Scot to spill open his darkest secrets
"Well, there's this girl-"
There was an intake of breath at the other end of the line.
"What girl?" The voice was instantly harder, colder and clearer. No longer did it sound like cigars being smoked on a hot summer's day. It sounded like metal gears shifting into place behind a block of cold, blue ice.
"Uh, Piper, I think her name is. Anyway, she's-"
Richie interrupted again. "Jesus, it's true what they're saying about you."
"What's that supposed to mean, Rich? What are they saying about me?"
" Stay where you are. " Richie's voice was hard and commanding. It had an edge Hope had never heard before. "I'm sending someone round right now. Do not move! "
"What are you talking about, Rich? What's going on?"
Richie's voice was haggard now, and sorrowful. "I'm sorry, Scottie." The phone fuzzed, his heavy breath filling in the silence that threatened to deafen Hope with unasked questions. "I'm sorry."
There was a click as the phone slammed down, and Hope was standing in the middle of his living room, clueless, when Piper burst through the door, shrieking incoherently.
She ran across the room, barged past him, and leant out of the open window. Starting forward suddenly to grab her - he wouldn't put it past a crazy kid like her to jump out of a window at a time like this - Hope was even more shocked when she leant back in, looking up at him with tears in her glistening, bright eyes, and opened her hands to reveal a black, transmitting node.
"This is CRAZY! Do you understand this?! We've got a goddamn bug! A goddamn bug! Why the f*ck would they bug me? What the hell have I done? I'm a great Admiral. I've done it all! Why?"
Piper realised they were in danger, but she couldn't understand Scott's tirade. He was a Rebel Admiral. Of course the Feds were gonna want to get him. She watched him run frantically round the room, hammering the butt of his Walther into the holovision screen (looking for bugs she guessed, but the way she saw it they were screwed whatever happened, might as well try and get out of here), cracking open his phone, throwing pictures off of his walls. Then she watched him stop, and run over to the window.
"Jesus..." he muttered, calm now. No, she realised, he didn't look calm. He looked destroyed. But why? Her question remained unanswered with a huge WHAM...WHAM....WHAM on Scott's thin door. He looked at her, wild eyed.
"Piper, get into the back room. Stay there until I've finished. If I don't..." He didn't look at her. Didn't say anything. Just stared at the little black box on the kitchen table, blinking rapidly. Piper stared at it closely, and then she noticed it. The box had a little white symbol on it. A small revolver, like the cowboys used to own. It was a Rebel symbol. They'd been bugged by the Rebels... Suddenly Piper was a hell of a lot more worried. She slid silently into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Picking up his Walther, Hope walked across to the door. He'd seen the guy out of the window. Barry, his name was. Hope couldn't remember what his rank was, but he'd seen the guy in a few of the HQ meetings he'd been to. Wetworks, that was what he did. If the Rebels needed someone silent, they got Barry to do it. He was huge.
What were the Rebels up to? What did they want? Why were they- No. He didn't care. He just had to get out of this situation. His instincts took over, the product of the Rebel Training Corps, and he pushed it to the back of his mind. Pulling the door open, he trained the Walther on the looming bulk of Barry. And was completely surprised when a huge fist shot out, slamming the gun out of his hand and sending it skidding across the room. A leg snaked out at lightning speed and caught him full in the stomach, knocking him against the kitchen table.
Barry stepped in, closing the door elegantly behind him.
"Admiral Hope. I'd like to inform you that I'm just following my orders. There's bigger things out there." The brute wasn't even out of breath. "I'm sorry to have to do this."
Sliding a small laser rifle out of his jacket pocket, he aimed it at Hope's chest. Throwing all of his weight into it, Hope swung the nearest thing to hand into Barry's face - let's see how you like these goddamn kitchen chairs, assh*le - and was rewarded with a satisfying crunch as cartalige and bone were forced into each other. But Barry wasn't some mugger, nor an amped up kid with death on his mind. He was doing a job, and he stumbled backwards, but kept the gun trained. He looked Hope in the eyes, and sighed as a deafening crack echoed through the building.
Piper stood behind Hope, the Walther still smoking in her shaking hands. She dropped the gun, and collapsed to her knees at the same time as Barry, glassy eyes still staring into Hope's chilling him, fell over backwards, and the rifle slipped out of his hands.
Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh no. What'd she done? What'd those damn, bloody hands of hers done? She'd never be able to wash them clean again. They were murderers. How could those damn hands of hers do that? No, it wasn't her hands. She was a murderer. She'd killed a guy. She had killed him. Bang, dead. Just like that. She'd killed him.
Piper sank slowly to the floor, holding her head in her hands, her long, golden locks flowing outwards, giving no clue of the inner turmoil she was suffering.
She'd shot a guy. He'd died. She stared at him, at his pale body taking its last, lifeless breaths. She looked it in its dazed, staring eyes, and felt sick, too sick even to vomit. She flashed back to that time when she'd left home. Her mum, her dad... they'd been sad, but they knew she'd be alright. Their little Pipe, she'd pull through, she'd come home in a couple of years, she'd have made it in the city, she'd be a woman. But now she wouldn't. She'd be a murderer, with blood on her hands. As she lay on the floor, the corpse's staring eyes burning themselves into her memory, watching the blood spill out of that little hole just under his collarbone, she prayed for the darkness to take her, as it was so obviously taking him.
But it didn't, and a voice, frantic yet deep, cut through into her head.
"Piper, we've gotta go. He'll be waking up soon."
"I can't..." she murmured to the hard boards of the floor. "I've killed him. How can I get up if he can't?" she stared at her murderous hands, at the gun that lay on the floor, a trail of smoke wafting slowly up from it.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" The voice was getting more frantic, its tones slicing through Piper's turmoil, reaching right into her stubborn mind. "He's gonna get up. He'll have a helluva sore arm, you slammed right through his shoulder muscles, but he's a machine. We've got to go."
Piper looked blearily up at the voice, hardly able to see it due to her puffed-up eyes and streaks of tears that were burning lines across her face. She hung onto the thin thread of hope that it was telling her, and staggered slowly to her feet. She could barely stand up, but the feeling returned when she looked at the corpse - no, the Bear - and saw light returning to his eyes. Light, and anger. They had to get out. She wasn't a murderer. She could have been, but she wasn't. She wouldn't get to sleep that night, but she could at least get to see the night.
Scott held her hand and dragged her over the body, stopping to pick up the rifle. They were halfway down the four sets of stairs when they heard a roar of rage coming from Scott's room. Piper looked at Scott, terror in her eyes, and saw the same expression looking back.
Piper sprinted out of the door, still holding onto Scott's hand like it was everything that anchored her to the world. She felt him pulling her towards a lime green Volkswagen Beetle Mk. III, one of the ones that had been made just before the transition to hover cars. It still had to be twenty years old.
"Is that all ya got?" she yelled. "There's no way we're gonna be able to get away in that junk heap!"
He looked at her, his expression unreadable. "It's all I've got. Now, little sharpshooter, can you drive?"
Piper leapt into the driving seat, and slammed the proffered keys into the ignition, as Hope hung out of the passenger window, firing several well aimed rifle shots at the doorframe, she spun the car into reverse, and handbraked their way out of the narrow parking space.
Scott looked at her again. She shivered.
"I won't ask where you learnt that. But we've got to get moving. Down the road, anywhere. I'll keep him inside." He demonstrated this by shooting at the figure in the doorway. Piper watched as the Bear ducked back inside, and then sped off down the road.
Half a mile later, Hope sat back down. Piper guessed the guy would've called for back up. They needed to get away, somewhere safe. She fiddled in her jacket pocket.
"WATCH THE ROAD!" Scott screamed. "What the hell are you doing?!?"
Piper looked back, unfazed. She slipped a datadisc into the car's stereo, and turned the volume knob. Hope was deafened.
One for the money
Two for the show
Three to get ready
Four to GO!
Hope could only watch as she careered the car through tiny allys, whipping it round in tiny corners, cutting through traffic queues like a hot knife through butter. Or a bullet through a man, she thought. He watched in wonder at the expression of grim determination on her face, and Piper tried not to blush under his gaze. It was almost an hour later when the small Bug skidded to a stop, but he hadn't really noticed the time passing. She undid her seatbelt, and looked him in the eyes.
"C'mon, Scott. We're here. We can make it."
Together, they piled out of the Bug. They were in the middle of a big plain, a large rock the only landmark around. In the distance, Scott heard the roar of hovercraft fusion engines. They had minutes. Piper lead him by the hand round to the other side of the rock, and he gasped.
"She's not much, but she'll do. Get in." Hope saw the name of the ship, Lost and Delirious painted on the side, in black stencils. Following his gaze, Piper felt a flush of pride. That'd taken her hours, and he was the first person ever to see it. Pushing him into the ship, she leapt into the seat beside him - one she'd installed for when she intended to take Sadie to see the stars - and pulled the engine starter lever. A low hum emitted, and the control board shone into life.
She watched the strip that indicated the manta's battery power begin to fill. 25%. They could go as soon as it flashed to show the cell was fully charged. As the Rebels roared closer - they could see the cars now, big and black and oozing with menace - Piper began to shiver. This was cutting it close.
50%.
"It's not looking good, is it?" she said, a wry smile flitting across her lips.
"Oh, I don't know..." he grinned. "Could be worse... we've got the Rebels and the Feds on us. We've got no money, no contacts and we're exiled from Earth. We've got one tiny ship-"
"And no smokes."
"Yep, none of them either. But still... the Pirates haven't found something to shoot us for yet, have they?"
The roaring was getting louder, and Piper could almost make out the driver and his co-driver inside. A plume of dirt erupted a few feet away from the manta. This was getting scary - the Rebels were too far away from them to take serious shots, but if they got lucky... she didn't want to think about it, and shut her eyes as a green beam lanced into the sky.
75%
Hope looked at her, and saw the fear in her eyes.
"Don't jinx it. Don't say anything about those Pirates. At the moment they're our only friends!" Piper joked, bravely. This kid wouldn't let on she was scared, not to him.
Hope smiled. "OK, I won't say anything. If you don't say anything either."
"What would I have anything to talk about?" the girl laughed.
"Apart from imminent death, and the fact that we're on the run from pretty much everyone?"
"Yeah, apart fom that."
"This," whispered Hope, and kissed her.
100%
She pushed the throttle, and the Manta leapt into the sky.
(This message has been edited by Jamin! (edited 06-01-2004).)
