hi! this is a bit of a story that i'm writing. NO COPYING. ;] hope you enjoy!
PS~ i don't have a title yet, any ideas?? ;] and tell me how you like it please!!!!!
Excitement. Confusion. Anticipation. That was what I felt as I ran up to the Commander’s room. Something was not right on the streets. You didn’t have to see the empty, dark streets at 8:00 on Friday night, with not even one restaurant light daring to shine through the dark, or see the few people who dared to appear move quickly down the sidewalk, next to hugging the wall, glancing over their shoulders every few seconds, reading the fear on their faces. You could feel it. It was an unnatural eerie feeling, not natural to this part of town. It was always hopping with activity, this being where some of the ‘good eats’ were found. I t was always fun to watch the ‘early bird’ people who tried to beat the crowd, then the flood of hungry people coming up and down the streets on their way to their favorite spot. Friends, family, and couples. I smiled as I watched the couples wandering down the street to one of ‘their restaurants’ for a date, walking hand in hand. Then after the rush were the late-nighters, those coming in from the movies and getting a bite to eat before calling it a night. I liked to watch them all, wondering how often they came, who they were, and what would happen to them in the future. I think too much about those things, people say, but that’s just the way I am. But none of that was happening tonight. It was dark and eerie, something defiantly was not right.
I reach the Commander’s room and knocked loudly. There was a gruff, “Come in,” from a voice I knew to belong to the commander, and I entered. It was not the Commander’s bedroom, it was just his room, like for thinking, planning and it also served as a meeting room. As I walked into the room I saw that most of the other members of the team were already there. The Commander was studying a computer screen with an arm going across his body and the other arm resting on it, allowing him to stroke his stubble coated chin.
The Commander was a tall, strong, large-build African American. He was almost always serious, always studying the situation; and with great results. He was the perfect Commander, the right build, the right personality, the right attitude and dependability; he even had a mysterious unknown-to-us past!
“What the heck is going on?” I asked as I shut the door behind me, walking over to the big, round angular, mushroom-like thing in the middle of the room with touch screens build into it.
“We don’t know. Something’s up, but we’re not sure what; we’re only picking up bits and pieces of the situation. “
“Well why not asking one of the civilians? You can see the terror on their faces like they’re afraid something’s chasing them.”
“We’ve tried talking to them,” Jaq said as he walked over to us from a table he had been sitting on behind the door, “but they either don’t know anything, or they’re too scared to stop their running long enough to talk.”
Jaq was a couple of years older than me, with medium dark brown hair that was really thick and stood straight up on his head. He was tan like me, and had hazel eyes. He was just like me, in that we both could focus on the situation at hand, while still having fun. He had always been my best friend to make cracks with during a mission, and to just talk to in between missions.
“Yes,” the Commander contemplated, “but I think the situation may be more serious than just scared civilians.” He touched something on the screen, “We may have dead civilians on our hands if the situation is as I think it.”
And, unfortunately, the situation is always as he thinks it.
“Come here,” he said and Wren, Maci (other member of our team), Jaq and I moved to his side to look at the screen that he had been studying.
Wren was Commander’s godson, and was pretty much a 20 year old version of Commander. He was an African American, like the Commander, was large built and muscular, standing only a fourth of a head shorter than the commander. He was always serious, like the Commander, but I had never even seen him smile; but just because he never smiled, doesn’t mean he wasn’t nice; in fact he is the sweetest member of the team to me. He was like my over-protective big brother.
Maci (another member of the team) was about three fourths of a head taller than me, and a fourth shorter than Wren. She had straight black hair that she kept short and had long bangs. She had black eyes and a long, sharp nose, being just at the point where it remained pretty, and she would have been a lot prettier if she had not become so sour, because it made her mouth prim and haughty, as if the sour thing dominated her whole face. The reason for this sourness will soon be revealed. She was the only other girl besides me on the team, so you would think we would be closer, but honestly, we were so different, that she and I were just friends. We weren’t close at all; my best bud has always been Jaq, and next in line would be Wren.
At that moment you could hear someone run down the hall and knock loudly at the door. The Commander, again without looking up, answered, “Come in,” and Baker came in out of breath. Maci looked up at him sarcastically with crossed arms and said, “Well, nice of you to join us.”
Baker was the joker of the team, always ready to make you laugh. He was just as well- built as the others, maybe more, but was about half a head shorter than Jaq. He was an African American as well, but while the other two wore their hair close-shaved, he wore his in neat, medium thick dreads that came to mid-neck. Even though he was a year and a half (almost two years), older than me, he still acted like my goofy little brother.
He only looked at Maci long enough to glare at her, then walked over beside me and viewed the screen the commander had pulled up. It showed two charts, the first with the line going up and off the charts at a 22 degree angle, the other going down at a 22 degree angle.
“This chart,” the Commander pointed to the first chart, “shows the economy in the last couple of days. It shows that people have been stocking up on just about anything they could get their hands on. And this chart here,” the Commander pointed at the second chart, “shows that shipments into the city have been cut off in the last few days.” He turned around and walked to the wall, where a large, touch-screen high tech computer screen was mounted. He typed something in on the key board below it, and several videos popped onto the screen of news reports. They all told of how trucks had been mysteriously ‘disappearing’ before they ever reached their destination. There for all food and things coming into the city by said trucks were never actually being delivered. Food and supplies were dwindling in stock, and people were advised to stock up on all they needed.
Another screen told of search-and-rescue teams being sent out to find the trucks and their drivers and never returning. I looked in awe at one of the videos in the top left corner of the screen showing interviews of the families of the truck drivers and search-and-rescue team members. They were all saying how worried sick they were of their husbands and wives, and how much they missed them. One interview showed a woman with a three year old on her hip and a five year old glued to her other side. She started to cry as she told of what kind of a man her husband was: brave, strong, and true; loyal to the end. She said he would never run off and leave his family. She tried to stop her tears as she told the reporter she missed her husband dearly and was worried to death. Then she turned to the camera and said, tears streaming down her face, “We miss you Charles, come home safe; please.”
I could feel my blood boil, “What do we know and how soon can we get started looking for the trucks and drivers?”
Jaq put his hand on my shoulder; I turned sharply to him, still furious about the situation. He said, “We still don’t know enough about what we’re dealing with to be able to handle it.”
“This has to be an organized group of people,” Wren explained as he walked towards me, “and a lot of them to be able to pull off a feat this large. We can’t just go in blind on this.”
“Well we’re not finding out any thing standing here staring at a computer screen! We’d find out more if we actually got out there and started searching!” I realized I had raised my voice, again. That was getting to be a problem.
“Cori,” Jaq said in a pacifying, firm way, still with his hand on my shoulder, “we have to wait. It would be fool-hardy to rush in there without being prepared. Just wait, we’re doing our best.”
His words calmed me down a bit, but I still was not convinced. “Well staring at a computer screen isn’t helping that woman’s husband.” I mumbled as I walked out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sat on my bed in my small bedroom; staring at my locket. It wasn’t a very large bed room, but you could move around in it. The twin bed was on the left side against the wall, and my dresser drawers stood against the back wall. There was a large, empty duffel bag on top to stuff our things into if we ever needed to leave in a second. To the right on the wall was a red light in an iron fence-like thing; it was a red light in case of emergency. The walls were painted a pretty creamy-brown, and the blanket on my bed was olive green.
I guess you can kind of figure out that I don’t have parents, given the locket thing. Pretty much every child that doesn’t have parents has a locket. It’s like the parent thinks that by giving the child a locket, it makes up for sending them off to a strange, cruel world. “Oh, I know that you’re going to an orphanage,” a motherly voice hinted with sarcasm said in my head, “where God knows what will happen to you; but hey! you’ve got a locket!”
I threw the blasted thing against the other wall. It made a tiny scratch as it hit the wall with a ‘pink’ and then fell to the floor with a ‘pang’, like it always did. I went over and picked it back up, and went back to sit on my bed, like I always did.
I opened my locked up, inside was one picture; it was of my Father. My mother had told the ladies that when she ‘dropped me off’. It said that on my resume’. I remembered the words, like I always did, “Name, Corranitalabelino Rodgers, (but my friends call me Cori. Don’t ask me why I have such a long name, because I don’t know. I sure wouldn’t have picked it out.) Dropped off girl of 1 year on so-and-so date. (they never would tell me the actual date, said they didn’t let any of the children know, so that they would be spared some sorrow, or something ridiculous like that)Parents married, gave daughter locket with picture of Father in it, no problem in parting on parent side.”
Those words would haunt me till the day I died. “No problem in parting on the parent side.”
They wouldn’t tell me that part, I would ask them to read it about once a week, (I don’t know why, but I guess it was all I had of my mother. What a sorry bit it was too) and they would read it all the way through, till they got to that part, then they would glance up at me and say, “That is all.”, but I knew it wasn’t, so when I was ten, I begged and begged and begged to be read every bit, as I knew there had to be more, and one of the women obliged finally. With sorrow in her eyes she read me that bit. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t shocked. I knew there was a reason that they had been keeping it from me, so I was prepared; though I will admit that I cried a bit that night.
I hated my mother. I would hate her till the day I died. I sat on the bed and opened up the locket. I looked at the picture of my father. He was smiling with the most happiness I had ever seen in anybody at the camera, and waving; he looked like he was at the beach. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. You could tell just by looking at his face that he was a muscular man and was tall. He was tan, had green eyes, and dark brown, curly hair, like me. He looked so nice and cozy, just as if he were telling me he loved me through the picture. He looked like my father, and a great man. I would have given anything to know him.
I tried to think of a reason why the kind of man I imagined my dad to be, would marry a woman like I imagined my mother to be, but I couldn’t.
I heard someone knocking at my door; I looked up and answered, “Come in.” Jaq opened the door and walked in. Without a word he sat down beside me. I looked up at him and whispered, “Sorry.” He put his arm around me, “No big,” he answered, like he always did. He spotted the locket in my hands. I realized I had never shown it to him; I handed it to him and quietly said, “That’s my dad.” He nodded as he took the small item from me. “Looks just like you,” he said as he studied the picture. I smiled at the picture, I was proud of the fact that I looked like my father.
He gave the locket back to me and standing up, he said, “Come on, we need all the brains we can get on this case.” I chuckled as I stood up, putting the locket back on.
Suddenly as we stood there, the red light next to the door lit up bright, and a siren came on. We looked at each other in alarm, and then started to run towards the Commander’s room. We didn’t bother to knock as we burst in, asking, and “What is it?”
The others were beside the Commander staring wide-eyed at the screen in front of him. He looked up gravely and answered, “Someone’s coming.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jaq and I stood beside the Commander now, watching a shifty man in black somehow get past all of our security precautions with ease. It’s like he knew to expect each one, I thought.
You see, our base is actually set up on an upper level of a home-security building. We live on the highest level of the building, but the stairs don’t go up to it. They cut off on the level below us. Our level is soundproof, and set up with the highest technology there is (what can we say?! The Commander knows people!).
We watched as he went in to the janitor’s closet, moved to the key pad on the wall that had a temperature setting cover on it to fool the janitor, and then punch in the correct key-code on the first try. Weird, he knew that too…. He then moved through to the elevator and calmly turned and leaned against the wall, apparently enjoying the elevator ride. Oh, not cockeye at all, are we?
“Can’t you do something, make the elevator stop, zap him, something?!” I said. This guy was just making me mad the way he thought he could just waltz into our base.
“I could, but I’m curious.” The commander said. I looked at him incredulous. Curious?! Then again, I thought…..
“Ok, so what’s the plan?” Wren asked. Wren was the one who always needed a plan. The Commander’s, his, he didn’t care, so long as it was a plan.
“Maci and Jaq, you cut him off at the elevator; he’ll be expecting that. Put up a fight but let him get past. Wren, Cori, and Baker, you cut him off in the hallway. Each of you hide in a bed room and surprise him. He’s a cockeye one, he will expect the first attack, but we might be able to off-hand him with the second. Don’t let him get in here. Jaq and Maci, once they’ve attacked him, you join the fight. As I said, let him get past you, act as though you’ve blacked out, then attack with the others. Now MOVE!”
