Special Agent Nicky Brown's comms device doubled as a hand grenade,
or perhaps a finger grenade, given that she wore it on her finger rather than
on her hand.
“Hurry up, punk!” she whined
into the ring. Shiny plastic overtop hidden explosives and wiring was all it
comprised, but the naked eye saw gold and diamond. “The year is 2148, Rowan. A
simple door shouldn't take this long to hack!”
“Shut up, will you?” the
voice on the other end replied. Nicky pictured Rowan typing away whilst
straining to keep his obnoxiously lengthy beard out of his motherboard. His
beard was so bushy that the last time he’d moved closer than two feet from his
work bench, he’d started a fire. Nicky sighed at the thought. I keep
telling him to trim that thing.
After waiting for
over five minutes on the rooftop of a currently airborne Ozricks
spacecraft, Nicky wished she’d brought her dolls to play with. But the only
toys sitting in her handbag were her hairbrush and her hologram device. Boring.
These spacecrafts typically
served as the Moonopian police, which patrolled the districts in an endless
loop. As they flew, their ominous shadows curved over the city’s buildings and
houses; but even if you were safe inside, the arbitrary and overtly loud beep
boop noises they made reminded you that you were always being watched.
Anyway, this craft, the craft upon whose roof Nicky stood, was many times
larger than the others, and Nicky had received word that vital intel awaited
her within its double-doors. She waited outside the doors, which, oddly enough,
refused to open to the stomping of her foot.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“Then find something to do.
Just… don’t jump.” Rowan’s words were hard to comprehend over the sounds of
typing and static, and the muffling effect of his all-consuming beard.
Nicky frowned. “If you don’t
hurry up, maybe I will!”
The seconds ticked on and
boredom intensified. Nicky found herself drawn towards the ship’s margin, but
in the same way that her boredom had made her forget her fear of heights, when
she peered over the edge, her resultant scream swallowed up any thoughts she’d
had of killing herself. Two hundred feet below, people looked like ants, and
she didn't much like the thought of being an ant, let alone a splattered ant. Her
arms wind-milled as she vied with gravity to keep her balance, and then she
staggered back, heart pounding. She was straightening her clothes when she
heard noises emitting from her ring.
“Nicky,” came Rowan’s
beard-ridden voice. “Nicky!”
“What?”
“The doors are open.”
One step away from the
threshold, Nicky was taken aback at the sight of her reflection in the
doorframe's metal surface. The wind, she realised, had made short work of her
ginger hair, which now looked coarse enough to net a fish.
Brushing that tangle of
orange from net into hair again took some time, but Nicky never rushed the
things that mattered most in life. When finally a semblance of normality smiled
back at her – which was to say that her hair came down from
her head – she stepped inside. The entrance way was a long and narrow tunnel
illuminated by white panels along its curved edges. She was still on her third
step when two more sets of steps added their sounds to hers. Echoes,
perhaps. But the sounds didn’t cease; they only grew louder. Nicky
looked down to count how many feet she had. One, two… just two! Which
means... which means...
She wasn’t alone.
The spacecraft was so large
that it had its own patrol unit: two guards, who exited through the double
doors that Rowan had opened minutes ago. They stopped mere feet in front of the
entrance and gazed at what appeared to be Nicky. These guards looked like twins
with their black uniforms, blacker helmets and black-as-a-black hole machine
guns. Nicky hadn’t brought a gun for herself; her handbag had refused to fit
both hairbrush and pistol.
“Now, what’s a young lass
like you doing on the rooftop of an Ozricks spacecraft?” Guard A asked.
“Yes,” Nicky replied.
“I think she’s shy,” Guard B
advised.
“Probably. What’s your name,
girl?”
“No,” Nicky said.
“Hmm? Don’t play games with
me!”
“Yes.”
“Just shoot her and be done
with it,” Guard B demanded. “She could be a spy.”
“Yes.” Nicky nodded, though
the movement was jolty and strange.
“Last chance, girl.”
“No.” She stepped forward
with the grace of a robot whose joints had glitched, while involuntary buzzing
sounds emanated from her knees. Guard A reacted to her advance by aiming his
sight at her forehead and firing. The bullet appeared to ignore her, however,
continuing into the metal roof behind. Nicky stood unfazed as the guard fired
again.
“Stop!” Guard B yelled.
“It’s just a hologram. The real culprit is likely already inside.”
But the real Nicky wasn’t
already inside. The real Nicky had grown so frustrated with the remote that
controlled her hologram that she’d forgotten about her mission. You see, the
buttons on this remote consisted of a joystick and a single red button. The
joystick controlled Holo-Nicky's movements, and the button made her speak a
random one of two words: ‘Yes’, or ‘No’. Now, positioned in a small nook
between a railing and the wall of the entrance, behind the guards turning every
which way, it seemed that the real Nicky was out of luck.
Yet they didn't detect her.
“Wait here,” A said. “I’ll
check around the side.” Nicky sighed in relief. One guard will be
easier to handle than two.
Ideally, B would have grown
bored and joined A, which would have left the entrance free for Nicky to enter.
But, unlike the order of the alphabet, this B character would not remain close
to A, and the only thing she could do was wait. Patience, for Nicky, was hard;
and when B took a step backwards, it only grew harder. She realised she was so
close to him that he might hear her breathing or feel the pounding of her heart.
Of course, there was one ace
Nicky still had up her sleeve – or rather, up her finger, given that she wore
it on her finger and not up her sleeve. Her turn came when B let the gun rest
on its sling in order to stretch his arms. Silently, she unsheathed her ring,
plucked off the diamond, leaned forward and slotted the ring onto B’s pinky
finger. The guard was none the wiser.
Guard A returned to say,
"I found nothing. By the way, what’s that thing on your fin-
But it was much too late for
him. Before his dialogue could reach its statutory end quote, Nicky sprang
forward and shoved B into A. She took cover again just as the two guards
exploded in a fiery display of blood and entrails. Two letters were at once dispersed
like eraser on pencil. Amidst the resulting smoke and blood gaped a sizeable
hole in the ship. Nicky wiped someone's intestines off her face as she realised
that everyone on board would now be either evacuating, rushing up to confront
her, or both. Fortunately, there was one device Nicky carried on her at all
times – one that didn’t require the space of a handbag. Kneeling beside a piece
of blood-drenched uniform, she focused the camera of her wristwatch at its
front. Within seconds, a fully new set of uniform, helmet included,
materialised right in front of her. Ordinarily, this effort would be fruitless.
Surely there was no time to change out of her clothes! Or was there?
Before her career as a spy,
Nicky was a world-class dancer; and, like all world-class dancers, she was
forced to acquire a certain talent, namely the ability to change her clothes in
the blink of an eye. In other words, Nicky was far from ordinary. So it was,
seconds before two dozen guards appeared, she successfully changed into her new
uniform, rolled herself in blood, and laid in the mess as a survivor. Moments
later, sympathy and shock covered the face of every guard, two of whom left and
returned with a stretcher. When they'd hoisted and carried her inside, she
pressed a button on her left earring and whispered, “I’m in.”
