Entry Four:

Entry Four:

            Gavin found himself roughly tossed into the back of the waiting stretch van. More of what he assumed were police were arriving on the scene as the doors shut behind him. Gavin picked himself up off the cold floor and struggled a bit with the cuffs behind his back before settling into a seating position. “I guess this isn’t going well,” he said.

            “This isn’t as bad as it looks,” Kylie told him. “Like I told you, just keep your mouth shut and we’ll make it though this.” He could barely make her out in the cabin’s dark interior.

            “They already took all of our gear,” Video grumbled.

            “We’ll see it again. Its got tracking chips in it,” Kylie assured him. “These monkeys will be lucky if they figure out how to even open it. I bet their best minds couldn’t even fathom our kind of tech.”

            “It would help if you didn’t call them monkeys,” Fredriks mentioned.

            “I’m still covered in blood,” Gavin said as he looked down at his shirt. “They won’t think I murdered someone, will they?”

            “I’m sure they won’t, seeing how we met them. How’s your ankle?” she asked inching closer on her backside. There were no seats in the cabin, and there was barely enough room for them all.

            “Its kind of creepy how they didn’t talk at all,” Goldie was sandwiched between Lance’s hulking figure and Video comparatively skinny one. They had been extra cautious cuffing Lance, but he offered them no resistance.

            “They probably all have mics in their helmet they chat with,” Video suggested. Fredriks had tried to talk with them, but they were mute the whole time.

            “Some planets have a strict policy when speaking with off-worlders,” Fredriks explained. “The first people permitted to speak to them are usually designated officials.”

            “At least they didn’t rough us up,” Video shrugged.

            “They handled Gavin a little rough,” Deborah claimed.

            “Well he can barely walk on his own, they probably thought he was resisting. Plus he’s got that blood on him. He’s lucky he didn’t get shot,” Video said dismissively.

            “You think this is my fault?” Gavin asked him.

            “We were going to get caught anyway,” Video said. “This was all pretty dumb of us. Or Kylie. Or Corporate. Of pretty much everyone.”

            “Would all of you babies hush up,” Kylie said as she looped her cuffs under her tucked feet and brought her hands out from behind her back.

            “Please don’t do anything rash,” Fredriks saw what she was doing.

            “I’m only trying to get comfortable,” Kylie said. “Plus it’ll help if I have jump them.” Somehow, they had overlooked the knife in her boot. It fitted in perfectly with the seams, so as to be invisible. To the untrained eye, her boots merely looked bulky. Gavin looked at his own boots and wondered if he had one as well. They had tried to take off his wrist unit, but it was firmly attached. Even he didn’t know how to take it off, which would prove difficult when he needed to change. One of the cuffs had to be widened to fit around it at the wrist. They had also attempted to pull out the node on his neck, but his screams of agony convinced them that it was physically a part of him. They were rather rushed about their business.

            Soon enough, the vehicle began to move and they saw the flashing lights out the narrow back window.

            “They’re taking us to the city, right?” Goldie asked.

            “They have to,” Kylie said, but she didn’t sound too sure of herself.

            “I think your ankle may need so medical attention,” Deborah told Gavin.

            “I’ll be fine. It hurts less now that I’m sitting,” he told her. He could feel it swelling in his boot. He noticed how the boot was muddy, but it hadn’t been scuffed in the confrontation. The fabric his clothes was made of was surprisingly resilient. His chest beneath his shirt, however, felt bruised, but he had no way of checking at the moment.

            “Everyone should have had a First Aid kit in their packs, which isn’t exactly going to do you any good right now,” Kylie told them. She had gone to the back window, their only source of light, and peered out at the streets passing. They had gone from dirt roads to a type of pavement. Their gear had gone into another truck, which was following behind them. “Worst comes to worst, I’ll just remote detonate the bomb you were carrying.”

            “What?” Gavin exclaimed loudly.

            “Oh, that was too easy,” Kylie laughed at him, then turned back to watching the street. Gavin scowled at her as she said, “I wouldn’t trust you to carry matchsticks.” The van swerved and Kylie had to prop herself against the door to keep from falling over.

            “Thank you for earlier,” Gavin said to her once she had righted herself.

            “No sweat. Are you going to pull through? I’m not sure how much of that blood is yours,” Kylie looked concerned.

            “None of it,” Gavin assured her. “Thank you too, Deborah. You’ve been a good friend to me.”

            Deborah smiled at him. “What do you think is going to happen to us?”

            “They’ll probably throw us into a holding cell. They’ll treat us like illegal aliens, because we are. They’ll interrogate us, but their form of government doesn’t use torture,” Kylie explained. “We have rights like everyone else. We might need lawyers, but hopefully we should able to sort everything out quickly. Aliens attract a lot of attention, and we should be able to meet with higher ups quickly instead of dealing with low level police officers like the pair that put us in this paddy wagon.” The van was slowing down, and there was more traffic. The cars parted for them to pass through. Passer-bys on the street craned their necks to look at the van race along. Kylie waved to them and gave a wink before laughing and sitting back down. “Either way, we’re still alive.”

            “Why are you in such a good mood?” Deborah asked. “We were nearly gored by wild animals, we’re under arrest, and when we get back home you’re probably going to be demoted.”

            “Please,” Kylie rolled her eyes. “You act like everyone gets demoted all the time. I haven’t seen it happen in the longest time. If anything, people are getting promoted more often than not, especially now. Just ask our new Chairman, if you like.”

            “So our careers aren’t in jeopardy?” Kylie asked.

            “You could put anything in the report you file for this,” Kylie claimed. “You could say you killed a dragon, if you like. Look at our staffing shortages. Do you think anyone is going to read your file? It’ll get dumped somewhere while you’re sent off on your next assignment. They’re going to keep running you ragged. They’ll promote you just so they can give you a heavier workload, while keeping your allowance the same.”

            “We’re getting paid?” Gavin asked.

            “Virtually nothing, of course,” Kylie told him. “Not enough to buy those new shoes and purse you’ve been eyeing. It’s just a little spending credit. The higher your rank, the more you get. Why’d you think they’d still you rookies in the bottom rank? You’re making the least of anyone.”

            Gavin found he suddenly had an opinion about his rank and job, but the suddenly squealing of the tires made him paused. They head the clanking of a gate being raised, and then slammed shut behind them as the van went on an incline. It got darker outside as they went into and underground parking area. The van stopped completely and the back doors burst open. A large group of guards in black were standing outside, all wearing the same type of helmets with dark visors. They proceeded to enter the van and drag them out into the long, white corridor connected to the loading bay. The lights above were made of glass balls filled with a glowing liquid substance. As they passed an open door that led into an office, he heard Kylie laugh and say, “You still use paper?”

            As they reached the end of the hall, it divided into two separate corridors. A grim looking man in uniform stood there without a helmet. He looked them over once and then proceeded to point in opposite directions for the boys and the girls. When Gavin was presented to him, he looked him over carefully and then said, “Take him down to Room B and get him cleaned up.”

            Room B itself was not far away. The two guards dragging him unlocked the door with a key card and then forced him inside. They brought him over to a metal bench built into the wall and set him down. The room was all white with a table screwed to the floor and no chairs. There were mirrors on opposite ends of the room and no windows. The one guard left while the other stood posted by the door, watching him silently. His one hand was on his gun holstered to his chest.

            Gavin, not knowing what to do or if he should say anything, simply sat and watched the man, who barely seemed to breathe. In a minute or two, the door opened again and the second guard brought in towels. He threw them at Gavin from across the room and ordered him,  “Get that blood off of you.” Gavin couldn’t help but notice there was a strange tinge to his accent. It sounded like and American doing a British accent, and he wondered if it was the node translating for him.

            “Did he kill someone?” the first guard by the door asked through his helmet.

            “They didn’t say anything about that,” the second guard said as he posted himself by the opposite side of the door. “They said they found them in the woods being chased by some boars.”

The first guard snickered at that. “Well what are you waiting for?” he asked afterwards, noticing that Gavin hadn’t moved to touch the towels. “Oh,” he realized that Gavin was still cuffed. “Who’s got the keys?”

The second guard simply shrugged and the first left the room to go and check.

When the door opened again after a minute, the guard looked over and who entered and immediately snapped to attention, placing their fist beside their helmet in a salute. The new person was a woman with steely grey eyes and hair to match., It was short-cropped and whipped up to a point at the front. A pale scar ran down the one side of her cheek, which was tan by contrast. She wore a grey uniform with shoulder pads and numerous pockets under her breasts and at her hips. She wore a gun in a holster over her breast like the guards did, with what appeared to be a truncheon at her belt. By the gun on her opposite breast was a row of gold medals. She barely glanced over at the guard as she made her way into the room. Her thick-soled boots clunked heavily on the bare stone floor. She walked halfway across the room and then stopped, standing with her arms crossed behind her back.

A second woman followed, and at seeing her, the guard immediately went down on one knee and bowed with his fist over his heart. Strangely enough, she had blue hair, but here eyebrows were black. She looked scarcely older than he himself, while the woman in uniform looked about forty or more. She wore a tank top with a black vest overtop with numerous pouches, and baggy pants held to her waist by a length of thick chain. Her bare arms showed various nicks and cuts, and she wore fingerless gloves on each hand. At first he thought here fingernails were painted black, but then he realized it was simply grime. In one hand she held a pair of goggles that she tapped into her other palm rhythmically. She was chewing on something with great vigour.

“I like this one,” she said to the older woman with a thick accent, “he looks dangerous.”

“He is dangerous,” the woman responded with a disappointed look. “He’s an outsider.”

“He’s a Generate,” she marvelled at him and came closer. Leaning in close and quickly, she grabbed him by the chin and tilted his head up. “A cute one.”

“My lady,” the woman growled her disapproval. “If your mother knew you were down here…”

“She’d what?” she looked backing, tossing her hair a little as she did. She didn’t bother waiting for an answer, and instead focused her attention on him. “What’s your name, Red?”

“Gavin Dales,” he smiled at her as best he could. She was still holding his chin.

“Gavin,” she let go of his chin and tapped him on the nose with her blackened finger. “What are you doing in here, Gavin? You kill someone?”

“No, I was attacked by a boar,” he admitted.

“You’re a hunter?” she asked, crossing her arms and stepping back a little.

“Not at all, we were in the woods and we came across some wild boars,” he explained.

“And what were you doing in the woods?” she pondered, pacing back and forth. The other woman was caressing the hilt of her truncheon as she glared at him.

“We were walking to the city,” Gavin admitted and shifted on the bench to make his hands more comfortable.

“And why were you coming to the city?” she waved her hand around in the air as she looked over at the mirror. The guard was still kneeling, and was completely ignored by both women.

Gavin swallowed. “Look, if you want to know, I’ll tell you, but it should all sound strange to you. It’s strange to me too. I’m from another dimension, and we came looking for some people we work with that are stranded here.”

The woman looked at the mirror for a moment longer, then looked back at him. “So you’re the rescue party?” she sounded doubtful.

“I know that whole part about being from another dimension sounds a little odd, but it’s true. We have some travellers here that were supposed to make First Contact with your world and it’s government, but there was an incident back home. Now everything’s in chaos and we need to bring them home right away,” Gavin shrugged helplessly and looked down at his feet. “Only it’s not going so well. Please, if you can, I need to find a man named Victor. He should be a Generate like me, probably wearing the same uniform.”

The older woman looked alarmed at the mention of Victor’s name, and gripped her truncheon more tightly.

The younger woman strode up to him and grabbed his collar. For a moment, he thought she was going to hoist him up by his collar, but she merely looked at it. “Where’s your pin?” she asked.

“Pin?” Gavin was confused. He tried to think of why she would look at his collar and expect to see a pin when he remembered Kylie wearing one. “I haven’t got one yet. I only started yesterday.”

The woman scrunched up her nose at that. Now she hoisted him up by his collar. She brought him to his feet, spun him around, and then slammed his face against the wall. Next, he felt her hands and his wrists. She did something, and he felt his wrist unit slip off and scrape away from the cuff surrounding it. She wasn’t gentle about it.

The woman put the unit around her own wrist and proceeded to play with the screen. She saw something that surprised her, but then she looked at him and noticed something. She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair and touched the node on his neck. “Captain Gavin Dales of X-77,” she recited as she read from the wrist unit. She tapped at the screen a few more time and then said, in an odd voice, “Happy birthday? You weren’t kidding.”

“Anything on that device could be easily faked,” the older woman warned. “We need to get it to R&D to see if they can retrieve any useful information from it.”

“Pish-posh,” the woman said dismissively. “I’m not giving up my new piece of jewellery. Guard,” she snapped her fingers at the man across the room. “Guard?” she said a little more loudly as he did not immediately respond. She stormed across the room, snapping her fingers in the man’s face.

“Yes, my lady?” the man looked up.

“Where are the keys?” she asked him.

“Steve went to get them,” he said, pointing out the door.

“Steve went to get them,” she repeated mockingly in a high-pitched voice. “Who is Steve? Am I supposed to go looking for Steve? Is that my job now? Go get the keys!” she kicked at him, and he ran scurrying from the room.

“That’s rather unlady-like, my lady,” the older woman frowned deeply at her.

“Like you would know anything about being a lady,” the woman laughed and played with the wrist unit. “After all these years I’m not entirely certain what you’re packing. I’m inclined to believe the rumours I hear. You should hear what Commander Sedin says about you behind your flat-buttocks.” She flipped through a few more images on the wrist unit, then looked up with an exasperated expression. “Really this is taking forever. Moriss, demote that man, and whoever Steve is. I dislike them both.”

“I don’t have authority over the police, my lady. Checks and balances, and so forth,” the other woman explained, still fuming.

“Then tell me what we’re doing in here, free-as-you-please? Who runs this country, after all?” she complained.

“The President, my lady,” the woman retorted with a triumphant smile.

“Oh, the President,” she mimicked her voice. “Please tell me what to do, Mr. President. We love you Mr. President. I’ve got your President right here!” she reached into her vest and produced a pistol. As the older woman in uniform drew back, shocked, she opened fire. A hot flash spread across the room.

Gavin had instinctively shut his eyes against the light. When he opened them her looked down at his wrists. All that was left of his cuffs were glowing hot metal, which soon fell to the floor. Gavin held them up to his face in disbelief as armed police officers crowded near the door in response to the shot they heard. Their hands were on their weapons, but the were reluctant to come into the room itself. “You there,” she waved the gun at the police standing in the door. “You let a lady walk into the precinct with a loaded weapon. Demotion, demotion, demotion,” she pointed at three of them. “Are you Steve?” she asked curious as she held the gun at one of the guards holding a pair of keys. “Too slow, Steve. Demotion!”

“My lady, I swear this is unacceptable behaviour!” the woman roared. “You could have killed this man before we can even interrogate him.”

“Relax, I’ll interrogate him back in my bedroom. Come along, Gavin,” she said in a sing-song voice and went out into the hall.

“You can’t take this prisoner with you!” the woman in uniform protested.

“I can’t?” the younger woman feigned shock and put one hand to her mouth. “Then who’s going to stop me? You?” she asked the woman. “You?” she pointed her gun at one of the police officers. “You, Steve? No, I didn’t think so. Come on, it’s a jailbreak. Oh, and I want the rest of them at the palace. See what you can do, Steve. I can’t have just one.”

Not knowing what else to do, Gavin slipped out into the hall after her, awkwardly nodding to the police as he went by and smiling as best he could. The woman was getting far ahead of him, and so he rushed after her.

The other woman put her head out into the hall and waved her fist at them. “You’re not getting away with this, do you hear me?”

“Do you hear me, my lady?” the younger woman corrected her as she threw open a pair of door. People in plain suits and uniforms turned from their work at their desks to gawk at them. When they saw who it was, they immediately went down to one knee. One person was a little too slow, and the woman standing next to him pulled on his pantleg. He shook himself and dropped the bundle of papers he was carrying to bow. The young woman laughed at him as she kicked open the front door and went down to the street.

Traffic was back up half-a-block, as there was a large bike parked across both lanes. Two police officers stood beside it, scratching their heads while a third tried to console the drivers and get them to turn back. They honked their horn and swore at them

When the two officers saw her come out, though, they went down to her knee. One was beside the bike, and the woman stepped up onto his back and onto the vehicle. It had no wheels he could see, but it had a pair of jets sticking out the sides. The woman pressed her feet down onto the pedals and reached up to put her hair into a ponytail and donned her green goggles. The bike roared to life and hovered up off the ground. “Well?” she asked him as if he were stupid.

Gavin scrambled up on the bike behind her. It was longer than the cars in the street by half. The noise was practically deafening. She tapped on the main console a few times then looked back at him. She reached out, and put his one hand on her hip quite deliberately. He followed her lead and put the other hand as well. “Come on, let’s go celebrate your birthday,” she told him as the pulled away from the street. They hovered up slowly, and then she kicked in with the speed. Gavin had to hold on for dear life as they tore away.

She titled heavily and flew at and angle, until Gavin was practically falling. “You fly?” she shouted back at him. He noticed she was still holding on to the pistol in one hand.

“Not really, no,” he shouted.

“But you’re a pilot, it says,” she shouted at him. She slowed down before a tall building then darted around it.

“I haven’t really had the chance,” Gavin explained as loud as he could.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense,” she was steadily gaining altitude. They were as high as the tallest building there and he could barely make out the people in the streets. His eyes were watering and he had to squint. She kicked out both of her feet away from the bike as she cut the engines. They began to plummet into a free fall. Gavin tried as best as he could not to scream as the ground came closer, while the woman herself gave a yelp of joy. When they were close enough to practically touch the pavement, she turned the jets back on and took off down the street, careening in and out of traffic. They approached a tall wall that seemed to stretch for blocks and she jumped over it and skidded towards an open garage. Gavin had barely enough time to make out the image of a sprawling white palace surrounded by a green garden inside of a walled area before they were deep inside the garage itself. She finally touched down and took off her goggles. “You like that?” she winked at him as she fixed her hair. “You can let go now,” she told him, indicating his hands at her waist. “Better yet, don’t.”

A man was striding towards them, hunched over with his fists balled. “Explain yourself!” he bellowed as he crossed the garage. There were other bikes like one she had lining the walls.

“I’ve caught the prisoner trying to escape!” she waved to the man as she stepped down off the bike.

“This has gone far enough, Jackie! Moriss called me to tell me you shot up a police station,” he towered over her, wagging his finger.

“She’s being dramatic,” the woman named Jackie said flippantly. “But look, I got you a present! Ta-da!” she presented Gavin as she changed the subject.

The man looked back and forth between the two, debating if he should continue with Jackie. “I’m sorry about all this,” he ran his hand through his thick hair and extended the other to shake with Gavin. “My name’s Victor. I’ll assume Coporate sent you.”