Factory Forty-Five carried a dull, lingering odor of burnt hair and dry electricity that Karen found almost unbearable. Upon entering, she saw no signs of activity anywhere within the junk-filled building. Even after calling out Nick’s name, there was no response. A feeling of unease tightened over her; something was definitely wrong.
They had agreed to meet here at eleven o’clock in the morning, and Karen doubted Nick would miss their rendezvous by choice. Deciding to investigate further, she headed towards the back of the building, where empty food wrappers lay scattered on the floor around a squared-off area constructed from empty crates and pallets. She entered the makeshift room and saw the sparse furnishings: an old, stained mattress without sheets, surrounded by filing cabinets and a half-rusted metal desk. Stacked on the desk were various notebooks and blueprints for strange-looking machines. She picked up a notebook to glance at its pages but quickly stuffed it into her pocket when she heard the echo of the front door shutting.
The young entrepreneur exited the makeshift room and saw that the person who had entered Forty-Five wasn’t Nick, as she had expected. She tried to duck back behind the crates, but it was too late. The two blonde women in Slayer Division uniforms had already spotted her, and one of them began to call out her name. “Karen Wake!”
“I know you’re here, Karen Wake! Come out and surrender! No harm will come to you if you cooperate! It’s us… Jane and Jamie. We just want what’s best for you,” Jane Ward shouted, her voice stripped of any human inflection.
The fugitive girl was in a tight spot, her mind racing through a flurry of instinctual options. She hadn’t seen Jane Ward in a long time but still remembered stories of her and her mother’s missions while in the Guild. She also recalled her mother looking sad after recounting those tales, always telling Karen that Jane was never the same after joining the Slayer Division. Karen knew she’d be foolish to take Jane at her word now.
Jamie, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. At one point, Jamie had been as close to Karen as anyone had ever been, and even though they hadn’t seen each other in years, Karen couldn’t believe Jamie would be her enemy. Surely, a person couldn’t change that much in such a short amount of time, Karen thought. “,”
When Karen emerged and saw the mother-daughter pair standing side by side in those stiff government uniforms, she realized she had made a mistake relying on her old friendship with Jamie to navigate this situation. The younger girl standing before her now seemed almost a carbon copy of her mother—whether by chance or design, the sight made Karen uneasy. “What’s this about, Jamie?” she asked her pursuers as the pair began to advance.
“,”
“You know why we're here, Karen Wake. You are in violation of over one hundred and seven provisions of the EDA law—and those are just the crimes against the State. You will be escorted to the holding cells of Branch Seven. Give us the location of the arms dealer, Nick Morgan, and we may consider a reduced sentence. But make no mistake, we offer no promises,” Jane said coldly.
“”
The girl’s words only confirmed Karen’s initial fears. Any loyalty Jamie might have once felt for her was buried under Slayer Division conditioning—an observation that made Karen feel utterly alone in the world.
Karen turned her focus to the elder of the two agents—Jane Ward. This living legend, with years of battlefield experience, could be the strongest woman in the world. Karen would have to devise something truly cunning to escape this dilapidated building alive. She knew, however, that The Steel Lady wouldn’t make it easy for her. “Can’t we work something out?” Karen questioned the senior agent.
“It’s not like I’m some lowly criminal, Jane. Our families were bonded in blood. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the things our mothers did together,” Karen threw out as a last, guilt-filled appeal.
A sudden, almost imperceptible eye twitch flickered across Jane’s face immediately after Karen spoke the words "bonded in blood,"“I remember,”
“I haven’t got a clue. I admit it. I was supposed to meet him here, but he’s nowhere to be found. I have no idea where he might be, so I’m afraid I won’t be any help,” Karen explained.
A breath later, Jane dashed forward towards Karen like an Olympic runner, catching the younger girl off guard. Within moments, she was in Karen’s personal space, drawing her pistol as she halted, aiming the weapon directly at Karen’s head. The young girl knew that the very situation she had been trying to avoid since she was thirteen was possibly about to unfold. She had no choice now; they weren’t going to give her one.
“I will ask you one more time, Karen Wake. Where is Nick Morgan?! Anything other than the truth will only result in pain. You won’t survive a skirmish against my subordinate and me.”
Karen took a deep breath and exhaled, savoring what could be her last moment on earth without pain. As she opened her eyes, she swiftly moved out of the path of the gun barrel and placed the tips of her fingers on it, deforming it with a flash of bright green light. A searing heat flared in her fingertips, a sharp, splitting sensation like her very atoms were being torn apart and reformed, but the pain was a dull throb compared to the fear. Jane quickly, without much hesitation, pulled the trigger, but the weapon backfired in her hand. Karen seized the opportunity to take several steps back, out of her attacker’s reach.
“”“”
Across the room, blood now steadily dripped onto the ground as Jane examined her wounded right hand with indifference. A small grimace tightened her lips. “You know, that would have gone very badly for me if I hadn’t already turned down my power cuff,” Jane stated, flexing her hand experimentally, a faint tremor running through it.
“It wasn’t enough, though,” Jane said coldly. “It’s a shame your power is wasted on yourself and not used for the betterment of the Division.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The middle-aged woman took off her jacket and threw it at Jamie. “”
“Okay, Miss Wake… let’s see how you do when the gloves come off.”
Again, Jane lunged at Karen with furious speed, even faster than before. As she neared her, Karen braced herself and extended her right arm, ready to unleash a concentrated blast of radiation, but Jane dropped into a one-handed cartwheel and propelled herself off the ground, lifting her above Karen’s reach. The Steel Lady twirled in the air above her and used the momentum from her acrobatics to slam her thighs squarely onto the young girl’s shoulders. Karen felt the vise-like grip of her attacker’s thighs around her neck as she lost her balance and stumbled backward from her hard landing. Already prepared, Jane, in one fluid motion, braced herself on the floor with her hands and flung Karen directly into Nick’s makeshift bedroom.
The black-haired fugitive had the wind knocked out of her, but she did not want to run or surrender—quite the opposite. She was buried under papers, pieces of wood, and a random assortment of debris. She pushed against the weight, stood up, emerged from the wreckage, and saw Jane standing and waiting with that same empty look on her face. Karen deduced from her attacker’s earlier comments that she possessed a power cuff—a rare device only Slayer Division field agents had. She knew she was now fighting The Steel Lady at near her true power. As impressive as that was, she thought, it still wasn’t enough to stop her.
As she began to quickly move away from the pile of junk, she was tripped by something she couldn’t see. When she attempted to regain her balance, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow of a figure sweep in behind her that could only have been one person. Out of pure instinct, she leaped back to solid ground and felt the floor shake as Jamie’s fist connected with the spot Karen had just vacated. “,”
The young fugitive had very little time to process this fresh betrayal because the moment she turned her attention to Jamie, she heard the rapid footsteps of Jane approaching her left. She turned her gaze upwards to the old, rusted roof of the building, riddled with holes, and jumped for it just as Jane moved in for another strike. She was almost certain she couldn’t reach the top in her current condition, and since her suppressant drugs were still working their way out of her system, she felt the force of her leap diminish three-quarters of the way up. Karen, however, was determined to escape her attackers.
As she reached the apex of her jump, she prepared for a fast and hard descent, looking down at where she had stood a second ago. Jane was standing, preparing another attack with that same blank stare. Karen felt anger surge within her and pointed her palms directly below at Jane. It had been a long time since she had decided to unleash this much power, but if The Steel Lady truly lived up to her name, it shouldn’t kill her.
The young female fugitive felt her body swell with power, and the heat inside her intensified, a burning agony that spread from her core outward, feeling like every cell was vibrating on the verge of splintering. Without any hesitation, she released twin green beams of energy from her hands, propelling her upwards and delivering a direct hit to Jane Ward. The pain intensified, a roaring inferno within her, but it drove her upward. Karen, propelled by the force of her energy blasts, was sent hurtling upwards and crashed through the old roof. The girl tried to absorb as much impact as possible during the landing, but she still hit it harder than she intended, almost collapsing that section of the roofing as well.
She had bought herself a few seconds, but she had to decide what she wanted to do with this brief moment to think. She hated the thought of abandoning Nick, leaving him to face the gangs and the Division alone. But without backup, she realized she was severely outmatched. The mother-daughter pair were simply too fast for her to contend with simultaneously. She had no choice but to make a run for it.
Karen's skin now radiated heat, a painful constant reminder of the power coursing through her. She knew she had to be emitting a significant amount of bio-radiation right now, each breath a testament to the internal furnace. The more radiation she released, the stronger she became, but it came at the risk of poisoning anyone nearby. If she attempted to escape via the streets and roads, she would contaminate any normal person she encountered. “Here we go,” Karen stated to the empty air.
Positioning her feet on the low-lying roof’s edge closest to her, the girl began to run up the slight incline to the top. She would take her leap at the apex of the building’s roof to clear the slightly taller neighboring building and continue as far as she could until she lost her pursuers. As she approached her designated spot, she was thrown off balance by the sudden shaking of the roof from an unnatural surge of wind. She collapsed but managed to catch herself before sliding off to the ground.
Clinging to the building and wondering what was happening, she heard a loud crash, and pieces of rusted metal flew in all directions as Jamie Hurricane“You aren't leaving, Karen!”
“”
Karen was stunned by the sight of Jamie embracing her elemental kinesis. As her former best friend had just stated, even when those powers began to manifest during her childhood, she despised them. She had even gone so far as to request the most potent damping shots to ensure she couldn’t use them. Her hatred for her father had far outweighed the perceived benefits of her inherited abilities.
“Come on, Jamie! Is this really you, or did they scrub your brain like they did Jane’s? You’re using those powers because you chose to. Now, if you don't let me go, I'm going to have to make a choice, too—and I don't want to hurt you!” Karen shouted, standing her ground.
The overcast sky began to thicken out of nowhere, darkening the surroundings significantly. Karen could sense that Jamie was attempting to take control of the wind currents around them, preparing for an all-out assault. Karen would have to give it everything she had if she was going to survive. She just hoped she wouldn’t accidentally kill Jamie in the process of defending herself.
Karen could feel her skin warming again, only this time it was much hotter than before. She cast aside her jacket as she began to sweat, and a green steam emanated from her. Jamie must have seen it too because she advanced without hesitation as it happened. “I said you're staying here!”
Having abandoned the sky, Jamie rushed at Karen, dodging the holes in her path with ease. The young fugitive could feel her power boiling up inside her and extended both her hands, ready to unleash it all in her friend’s path as she approached. Jamie anticipated this, however, and a sharp, conjured focused blast of wind was flung at Karen and sent her crashing to the ground below in a wild flail.
The girl cried out in pain as she landed hard against the rock-hard pavement. She had been forced to sacrifice her left arm to protect her vital areas from the impact of the fall. Karen hurt all over, from both the impact and using her power. She tried to collect herself and was horrified to see a jagged bone protruding from her limb. The burning agony from her powers flared, intensified by the searing jolt of the broken bone she now realized was there. Her consciousness flickered, and she had to clench her teeth, clinging to the pain itself to prevent the darkness from swallowing her.
She stood up in the parking lot of Factory Forty-Five, finally after what seemed like a long while, and began to limp away very slowly. It was a futile attempt, however, because the next thing she could remember feeling was something hard striking the back of her head. She rolled onto her back, avoiding her broken arm barely. She saw Jane standing close by, somewhat injured but standing, nonetheless. Patches of her exposed skin, particularly on her forearms and neck, glowed with an angry red, tinged with a faint green, indicating radiation burns. In Jane’s own hand, she vaguely registered the smooth plastic of a small yellow syringe, its plunger depressed. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she thought she could see an angel in the sky. Hovering below silent, gracefully moving clouds. she thought.
