Chapter One
October 27th, 7:32 PM
The factory was dark, dusty, damp. There were ceiling lamps every ten yards or so but none of them seemed to do much good. The large men in balaclavas who patrolled the building's mostly empty halls walked in and out of darkness thousands of times every day. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete floors; that and the creaking and wheezing of a few old machines were the only sounds to be heard at most times of the day. The place almost seemed haunted: a study in black and white and brown, with a team of identically clad thugs going up and down its paths, the same routine every day, staring straight ahead, but occasionally looking out from the railings on the higher stories to see a vast expanse at the building's center, a darkened rectangle notable for abandoned conveyor belts, moldy boxes, and the small team of people who sat at a round table in low light, sifting and cutting and sorting and working on God knows what.
"What the hell are they doing there anyway?" one of the guards said quietly to himself. He looked out at the factory, his hands tightly gripping an automatic rifle, and shook his head.
"Don't know why I'd do this if the pay wasn't good," he muttered, with a small, mirthless laugh.
And then, something hit him. He felt a sharp twinge in the back of his leg, and he fell down on one knee. Suddenly, two spandex-clad arms were around his neck, pulling it gradually into a kind of sleeper hold. He dropped the rifle to the floor and tried pulling away the gloved hands of his attacker. But by the time he had set his fingers on whoever it was, he felt weak. Seconds later, he slumped to the floor unconscious.
Blue Lynx stood up from the guard and looked at his prone body. "That's four down," she thought. "Can't be too many more."
She pulled the guard by his ankles into a nearby room, hiding his body from what little light shone in the factory. She walked out of the room and shut the door, and then moved to the railing where the guard was standing, looking down at the small group huddled around the card table.
"And they're still there," she thought. "Good." She crept down the hall, using the darkness for cover, looking around for guards, and looking for a way to descend to the ground floor. She found a staircase. It was brightly lit, but it looked empty, and Blue Lynx bounded down its steps as quickly as she could. One floor, two floors, ground. She exited the stairwell through a door looked for more cover, eventually darting behind a large pillar holding up one of the second story walkways.
"Everything's going according to plan," she thought. "Now, if I can just--"
The voice started out small and then grew into whine, the cry of a young woman in distress. The voice seemed familiar. It was accompanied by heavy footsteps and a shuffling sound. Then, the scoot of the folding chairs around the card table as the small group came to their feet. And finally, a pair of hands clapping.
Blue Lynx looked around the pillar, and gasped.
The person clapping was the woman who had been sitting at the table. She was dressed almost entirely in leather, with bleached blonde hair and stilettos that were several inches off the ground. She was grinning, looking at the three people who had walked into the room. Or rather, the two who had walked, and the third who had been dragged. The two were guards-- large men dressed in black, with sleeveless shirts and balaclavas and machine guns, guards just like the ones Blue Lynx had been taking out for the last half hour. And the third was a girl, a pretty girl in a striped sweater, black leggings, boots, and large-rimmed glasses. Her arms were being clutched mercilessly by the guards, and she shook her head and kicked to try to escape, but to no avail.
It was Margot.
The guards released their grip on her arms and pushed her to the floor. Margot was able to soften the fall with her wrists, but she still cried out in pain on impact. The woman in leather walked over to her, smiling. As she got nearer to Margot, she pulled out a small pistol. Margot looked up at her to see the gun being pointed directly at her face.
And then the blonde woman called out in a shrill, ear piercing voice. "BLUE LYNX. WE KNOW YOU'RE HERE. COME OUT, OR I RUIN YOUR CUTE LITTLE PARTNER'S GOOD LOOKS FOREVER."
Blue Lynx froze, gritted her teeth, tried to think of a plan. She scanned the open area of the factory. There had been two guards and the blonde woman sitting at the table. The once-resting guards now stood in a wide circle with the other two guards, all of them watching the blonde woman wave the gun at Margot, who was on her hands and knees, a terrified look in her eyes.
She could come up from behind the first guard, tackle him, and... No. The others would see her immediately. The light was a little better in the center of the factory. Well, why not use a smoke bomb, then? She could throw it in the middle, and... No. The blonde woman might pull the trigger then simply out of spite. What if she threw something at the blonde woman's gun, one of her Lynx Darts, and took her out, and... No. She had been able to incapacitate the guards one-by-one, but she probably wouldn't have a chance against four of them at once. These men were huge. And all armed to the teeth.
"I'M GIVING YOU TO THE COUNT OF THREE, BLUE LYNX. THE COUNT OF THREE BEFORE I PUT A BULLET IN THIS BITCH'S BRAIN."
What to do? What to do? Blue Lynx clenched her fists.
"ONE."
How did Margot get caught? What happened? Why?
"TWO."
Shit. Shit. Shit.
"THREE."
Blue Lynx stepped slowly from behind the pillar, waving her arms and calling out. The guards and the blonde woman turned to see her emerge from the shadows, her arms at right angles, her hands in the air.
"Don't shoot," Erin said. "I surrender."
On to Chapter Two
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