A hail of bullets rained down on the picture
window of the bank. Torres landed on her butt and winced. She'd have a
massive bruise in the morning from that landing. She stood and broke into
a sprint. She adjusted the backpack she wore, shifting the weight of the
cash within.
"Dammit," she muttered as she rounded a
corner. The sirens were growing close quickly, and she knew it wouldn't
be hard to find her, respite the rapidly growing dusk. She ran to what
she thought was an abandoned storefront and slammed the butt of her pistol
into the window set into the front door. It shattered and Torres ducked
inside.
"Angelo, I wish you were here," she
whispered as she hid behind the counter. She closed her eyes and pictured
her close friend and comrade Angelo Espinosa. The bastard was a mutant,
but he was her mutant. He'd come back to LA after one of his mutie bosom
buddies was killed and hooked up with Torres again shortly afterwards.
They were able to ignore their history for a little while. They'd been
lovers before. Torres hoped they would be again, and it started to look
like it was going that way.
Then he refused to go with her tonight.
Torres assumed it was some screwed-up code
of honor that he'd grown. Honestly, she wouldn't normally hit a bank. A
convenience store was more her speed if she needed cash. She was in deep
this time though, owing people much bigger than she was.
A police cruiser zoomed by, the siren
blazing. Torres sighed deeply in relief. She was safe for the time
being, she hoped. She turned and peeked over the counter. The lights
drew further away and rounded a corner. She was clear for the time
being. She smiled and stuck her pistol in the waistband of her jeans.
The clip was empty anyways. She had another clip on her somewhere, but
she wasn't overly concerned about reloading at the moment. The getaway
was a little more pressing.
She looked around her surroundings and
nodded in satisfaction. As long as they didn't notice the broken window,
she'd be fine. She glanced behind her, ensuring she was alone, and stood
completely. It looked like a former Korean market that had been closed
for quite some time. She ran her fingers through the thick layer of dust
on the counter, then wiped them clean on her jeans. She walked through
the empty shelves and noticed the door to the back room hanging slightly
open with a light on. Torres frowned and walked to the door. She pushed
the door open slightly and looked inside.
Torres gasped.
Jono Starsmore waved to the crowded club as
his trio headed off the stage. The
London club scene was incredible. It
presented him with more and more opportunies to play, and the play for the
gigs was growing with each subsequent appearance. His growing control of
his powers helped.
He ran his hand across his chin as he
thought about from where he'd come. He'd started a normal kid, and then
slowly evolved into what some considered a hero, and then it went downhill
from there. He smiled at some groupies and waved.
"Jono," a familiar voice whispered. Jono
spun, trying to see the speaker.
"Hey mate, what's wrong?" his red-headed
drummer, Thom, asked.
"Nothin'," Jono muttered. "Just hearin'
things."
"Right," Mickey, the dark-skinned guitarist
and singer, exclaimed. "Like the roar of our bloody fans?!"
"Right, whatever," Jono muttered. The stage
manager ran up to Jono as they approached the dressing rooms.
"Mister Starsmore," he said. "There's
someone in the green room to see you." Jono looked at Thom and Mickey and
shrugged. Thom poked him with a drum stick.
"Do 'er man," he said with a sick grin.
"Welcome to the life of a rock star." Jono gave Thom a weak smile, then
turned to the manager.
"I'm right behind you mate," he said. He
followed the greasey short man down a short corridor. The club catered to
live bands quite well. It actually surprised Jono.
The manager opened the green room door and
waved Jono inside. He hurried in and found, not the lovely lady Thom
predicted, but rather a tall blonde gentleman in a suit. He smiled and
held out his hand.
"Mister Starsmore, I'm Guy Geoffrey," he
said. "I'm the booking agent for the Reckoning." Jono startled a bit.
The Reckoning was an increasingly popular band in
London, and according to BBC News,
starting to become known in the States.
"Yeah, how can I help you?"
"Well, we lost our bassist a week ago,
claimed he'd found love with a prostitute up in
Cardiff," Guy continued. "I've been
watching you for a while and I wanted to offer this to you first- how
would you like to take over as we move into our first record deal?" Jono
grinned.
"Hell yeah."
She wasn't going back this time. No,
definitely not. Molly Hayes had enough. She pulled her frog hat down a
little bit more and adjusted her backpack. She was a teenager now,
thirteen years old, and her mom and dad were still treating her like a
little kid. She was sick of it, and this time, she was running away for
good.
She had packed a bunch of clothes, plenty of
socks and underwear, about four hundred dollars in old allowances, and
three ham sandwiches. Her mom and dad would have been proud of the ham
sandwiches. They had a Hispanic lady who usually did the cooking for
them, and Molly learned from her.
"Don't even try it," a harsh voice growled
from a nearby alleyway. Molly stopped, suddenly very afraid. She looked
around and realized the voice wasn't speaking to her. She tip-toed to the
corner leading into the alley and peeked around it. She saw a man in a
dark suit holding a Hispanic girl by the hair. He forced her to the
ground.
"Kneel and look at me," he said. The girl
raised herself to her knees and turned to the man. Molly could see she
was crying.
"Miss Torres," he said, "you've seen some
things no one should see." He raised a gun and pressed it between her
eyes. "And no one will ever hear about." The man in the suit pulled the
trigger.
Molly screamed.
The man turned and his jaw dropped. Molly
began running as quick as she could away from the alley, dropping her
backpack as she did. The man ran after her, ignoring the corpse. There
was a witness, and that was unacceptable.
Molly ran as fast as she could. Her legs
pumped up and down, but she was afraid that wouldn't be enough. She
hadn't run a lot, and she was afraid the man would catch up to her. She
rounded a corner and ran directly into a dumpster. The man ran around the
corner and scowled at Molly. He leveled the gun at her.
"And you have also seen things you
shouldn't," he growled. Molly backed up against the dumpster. She tried
to grip something, anything loose to try to hit the man with. She felt
her fingers dig into the metal of the dumpster. Without hesitation or
confusion, Molly lifted it and threw it at the man in the suit. She
turned and began running again. She didn't care if she hit the man. She
didn't even care how she did it. She just wanted to run away. She
glanced over her shoulder, and ran into someone.
"You okay?" a grey skinned youth asked.
Molly suddenly felt very tired.
"Murder, in alley, back th..." Her eyes
rolled back and she fell forward in Angelo Espinosa's arms.
Everett Thomas couldn't sleep. He assumed
it was partly because it was still fairly early in the evening, but it was
also in part because of tomorrow's activities. He was starting classes of
University of
Missouri- Saint Louis, and to
say he was anxious would be an understatement.
"Damn," he muttered as he rolled over. It
was only eleven. If he tossed and turned like this all night, he was in
for a long night. He started to roll over again when he heard a tapping
at his window. He sat up and could make out a vaguely familiar form
outside the window. He slid out of bed, grabbed a T-shirt and slipped it
on. He stepped up to the window, unlatched it and opened it.
"About time," Jubilation Lee muttered. "I
was starting to wonder how long it'd take you."
"You only started tapping a minute ago Jubes,"
he said. Jubilee smiled and hugged her friend.
"I know," she laughed, "I just have to give
you shit, you know?"
Everett smiled, returned the embrace and
kissed the top of her head.
"Yeah I know," he said. "Scott had called
and told me you'd been kidnapped. I never heard back. You okay?"
"Yeah," Jubilee muttered, "I guess."
"What are you doing here?"
Everett asked.
"I had nowhere else to go Ev," she started
to cry. "After what they did to me, I had to leave. It was like what
happened with Bastion times ten."
Everett gritted his teeth when she
mentioned Bastion. Jubilee's captivity at the hands of Operation Zero
Tolerance was one of the toughest things he'd ever endured, and he
couldn't begin to imagine how she felt.
"It's okay," he whispered. "You'll be
okay."
"You okay chica?" Angelo Espinosa whispered
to a groggy Molly.
"Just-" She yawned. "-tired." Angelo looked
over the edge of the rooftop and into the alley way. It had taken him a
half hour to revive the young girl after she collapsed into his arms, and
after that, it took another fifteen minutes to get the story out of her.
By the time they'd gotten there, the scene was crawling with crime scene
investigators.
"Mierda," he muttered. It was his Torres
all right. He was actually hoping to intercept her before she'd done
something stupid, and now she was gone.
"What did you say?" Molly asked.
"Nothing," Angelo said. "You said the
shooter chased you?"
"Yeeeah," Molly yawned. Angelo nodded and
looked back into the alley. He bit his lip and thought of Torres. She
had allowed him to stay with her when he'd arrived back in LA after
Paige's death, and they'd grown close again. She'd hit some hard times
which she wouldn't tell him about two weeks ago, and when he'd returned to
the apartment that afternoon, she'd left a simple note informing him of
her plans.
"Okay chica," Angelo finally said. "Let's
get you out of here. We'll call your parents from my place and they'll
take care of you." He glanced back at her. She had dozed off again. He
smiled and walked over to the young girl and picked her up.
"Okay, I guess you're taking a nap, then
we're calling your parents."
Agent Hans Maher hated crime scenes. He
absolutely despised them to be brutally honest. Today he had a purpose
though. He knew his task, and has accomplished it, now he just needed to
stand around and look pretty.
"Agent Maher, we appreciate your help," the
head CSI, a younger man named Keller, said. "We've lifted all sorts of
finger prints, and it appears that there are ample hair and skin samples
on the victim's person. Interestingly enough, the skin is grey. How many
grey skinned people live in LA?"
"Are you saying it's a mutie?" Maher asked.
"Yes, I believe it is."
"Well do your thing and let me know," he
said. "I'll keep in touch."
Angelo paced back and forth on the phone as
Molly watched TV in the living room. He rubbed the bit of stubble on his
chin. He'd been waiting on hold with
UCLAMedicalCenter for ten minutes to reach
Molly's father. The hold music was getting annoying. It suddenly
stopped, and Angelo took a deep breath to speak.
"Who were you holding for?" a nurse asked.
Angelo scowled.
"Gene Hayes," he replied. "In
neurosurgery?"
"That's what I thought," she replied.
"Doctor Hayes is out at the moment. I'm sorry about that." He sighed.
"Okay, when will he be back?"
"Angelo!" Molly called from the other room.
"About half an hour," the nurse said, about
half unheard.
"Okay," he said, "thanks. Gotta go." He
clicked the phone off and walked into the living room.
"What is i-" He stopped as he saw his own
face on the screen.
"-rently this man is wanted for
questioning," the announcer said. "Angelo Espinosa was a long-time
accomplice of Miss Torres, and samples of his DNA were found on the
victim's body." The image changed to a shot of the crime scene from a
distance. "Although police declined to comment further, they did confirm
Espinosa is the primary suspect in this terrible crime. Eye witness
reports also report that Espinosa may have kidnapped one Molly Hayes of
the
Hollywood area." A photo of Molly appeared on
screen. "Miss Hayes was in the area when shots were fired, and she was
seen being pursued by the suspect."
"It wasn't you!" Molly exclaimed. "I know
it!" Angelo put a hand on her shoulder.
"I know," he said. "We need to go." He ran
into his bedroom and pulled out a duffel bag. He threw open his drawers
and began throwing clothes from them into the duffel. He zipped it up and
ran into the living room.
"Come on Molly," he said, "grab your bag,
out the fire escape." He slid the window open and beckoned Molly to
follow. He could hear sirens growing close. They were coming for him.
He patted his pocket and made sure he had his cell phone. It'd be no good
in another twenty-four hours he knew, but twenty-four hours was all he
needed.
About
one o'clock,
Everett's cell phone began ringing. He
turned and reached, trying not to disturb Jubilee, who was lying on his
other arm. He looked at the screen.
"Angelo?" he muttered. He flipped the phone
open. "Hey man, why you calling so late? What? You're kidding. Yeah,
text me a place and time. I'll be there." He flipped the phone shut and
began shaking his arm.
"Jubes, wake up," he whispered. She stuck
her head up groggily.
"Whuzzat?" she murmured.
"It's Ange," he said. "He's in trouble."
Jono was about to take a bite of pasta when
his phone began buzzing in his pocket. He grabbed the phone and flipped
it open.
"'lo?" he asked. "Angelo? No man, it's
cool, I'm just catching an early lunch." He paused a few moments.
"What? Mate, let me get a flight out. Let me know where and when, ai'ght?"
Jono hung up the phone, then hit a newly added preset. He pressed it to
his ear and listened to it ring. After a few moments, someone picked up.
"Guy? Hey, it's Jono Starsmore," he said.
"I've a favor to ask."
Agent Maher tapped his fingers on his desk.
He finally picked up the phone and made the call he'd been dreading.
"Jake?" he said. "Get me Slow Burn. We
need the PH Task Force."
In Generation X #18: The team
reassembles to deal with Skin's crisis, but what will they find when they
encounter the FBI Post-Human Task Force?
