Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Not For Bounty ❯ Neo Red Dragon ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Not For Bounty
Author- Byakko Rei


Chapter 2
Neo Red Dragon Crime Syndicate

Julia came to consciousness slowly, but didn't open her eyes. She didn't want to draw attention to herself just yet. She became aware that her auditory functions had become almost painfully acute and her skin seemed to crawl with hyper sensitivity. It felt like she was covered with a multitude of tiny suction cups. Her head was bare, with the exception of a tube about 2mm. in diameter that protruded from the centre of her skull, which she could *feel*. Where was she and why wasn't she dead?

The air was pregnant with whispered excitement around her. She heard the words "survivor" and "a chosen one" repeated by beings with breathy voices and lisps that prolonged the 'S' sound. She wasn't able to discern whether the entities referred to her or not with her eyes closed. Julia slowly pushed her senses further to take in the room's ambiance. A lab. Definitely a lab. She heard the whir of centrifuges and the soft clinks of glass test tubes as they were handled and put into wire racks. She smelt the distinct odour of preservative chemicals, a variety of solvents, and... blood.

She concentrated on the quieter conversations further away which obviously belonged to the more competent lab technicians. She caught the terms "mutating virus" and "special modifiers that would enhance the nervous system". They mentioned the necessity for "revivable recipients" and "fresher organs" more often, though.

From what she could tell, they were working on a new experimental drug. If its administration was successful, the lucky recipient would become an extra-sensory-being or ESB... but if it failed, the body would mutate into a soulless Harpichiroptus... more commonly referred to as a 'Gatherer'. There didn't seem to be much of a success rate, she mused wryly.

There were two things she was sure of, though. One, she needed to get out of there intact; and two, she had to tell Spike she was alive before he went out and did something heroically stupid. But before she did either of those things she needed to sleep... she had an excruciating headache.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Julia was awakened by a presence. Her eyes fluttered open to take in a large flat-screened monitor above her gurney. It contrasted monochromatically with the rest of the room's stark whiteness. She turned her head slightly to meet the brown eyes of a thin, diminutive man in a long white lab coat.

The 'visitor' gave the semblance of a smile, then addressed her pleasantly. "Welcome back from the dead... Julia." His smile widened when he noticed an almost imperceptive emotion flit across the young woman's features. "Virtual memory scanners are very helpful research tools," he explained. He leaned forward in an almost intimate gesture and gazed into her face. "Not only can we extract detailed images of all your acquaintances and secrets even you've forgotten about, we can also replace your memories with frighteningly realistic new ones!" His tone was smug.

Julia's muscles corded in her arms as she struggled with her restraints. She knew it would be only a matter of time and concentration before she broke free. She relaxed and calmly asked, "What do you want from me?"

He answered her smoothly. "We want you to bring your friends to us, Pet, but first you need to be indoctrinated."

Julia closed her eyes to remove the smirking man's image from her view, only to find he was still there. A wave of nausea washed over her and she felt bile rise to her throat. She swallowed hard.

The obnoxious voice intruded again. "That's right, Julia, I am a virtual program and you are going to do exactly what I want... or experience neural pain. It isn't as though you have anything to live for anymore... your lover, Spike, is dead. Oh, yes we collected him, but the drug we administered failed. Regrettably, the Harpichiropti perish soon after they collect a body. Unlike our Master, it seems their systems can't take the teleportation more than a few times." He grinned evilly then straightened. "As long as we can program the ESBs to carry out His Eminence's plans, the Gatherer's serve their purpose the way they are." he concluded maliciously.

Julia forced herself to stay emotionless and thoughtless while the program tried to break her with mind games. From the content of the 'indoctrination', she knew she needed to get out of there and find a way to stop the Red Dragon once and for all. Julia tested her bonds daily, but her recovery was slow due to the lack of nourishment. It would be weeks before her strength returned completely.

When Julia was finally able to brake free of her confines, she ripped the virtual sensors from her temples, heedless of the pain. She then slid off of the gurney and hefted the bed frame over her head to smash the 'tutorial' monitor above her. When the glass and fine dust particles settled, she noticed for the first time small, strategically placed 'black dots' in the walls and ceiling. She fractured each of the minicams' lenses using the metal from her broken sensors.

A high male voice came over an intercom in the ceiling and broke the silence. "You know, Julia, even if you manage to get off of this facility, you will never be able to escape us. If you don't bring your allies to us voluntarily, you will bring us to them. Be a good girl now and let us help you to become the soldier you were meant to be...."

The voice ended abruptly when Julia stood atop her bed and yanked the wires from the speaker. 'So, they put tracers in me!' she acknowledged grimly.

She glanced around the room. The door appeared to be made of steel and electronically activated from the outside. The space where the monitor had been offered a view of metal cable conduits that tracked in the direction of the door... no crawl space. Her only way out was through the thin steeled air ducts. The indigenous Powers That Be probably knew that. She wondered idly if she were being timed.

She rolled the gurney over to where the duct was and stood on it again. She carefully pushed the grill up and noticed that air duct teed off to proceed vertically where the back of her room would be. She slid the grill towards the 'T', pulled her slender body into the duct, then headed inch by silent inch in the opposite direction. Julia stole a peek at what appeared to be a control room through the next vent.

A thin, tallish man sat behind his desk and stared in panic at the bank of blank monitors which should have shown various camera views of her room in a state of disaster. His fingers flew over his computer keyboard and every few minutes the clean-shaven face would glance nervously up at the duct. He grunted in satisfaction when his monitors flickered, then brought up images from a few hours ago with real-time displayed in the corners. Clever man. She almost laughed when a knock at his door startled him. His head jerked up, slightly displacing his black toupee. It was a security guard who noted 'all was well'.

When the door shut, Julia chose that moment to slide through the hole where the grate had just been. The scientist swivelled his chair around to gape at the nude woman before him. His face slowly suffused into a bright red. No doubt the indigent lecher had done his share of fantasizing while monitoring her helpless body on the gurney. When he reached for a button under his desk, Julia stilled his hand.

"I wouldn't do that, Mr. Evidence Hider," she admonished. "Let me introduce myself." She put her hand congenially on his trembling shoulder. "I'm Baldy Locks, but you can call me... Mr. Russell!" she informed him. "Nighty-night!" she whispered.

The man's eyes went wide for a second, then rolled back into his skull as she pinched a nerve in his neck. He crumpled to the floor and lay still.

Julia donned Mr. Russell's white button-down shirt, two piece grey suit, blue tie, and black shoes. She quickly located a dust pan and a small sweeper, then put them into a new garbage bag. She hoisted her replacement up into the air duct, grabbed her bag, and proceeded to shove the inert man into her private programming room. She cleaned up her mess then lay her decoy upon the gurney. She doffed his hairpiece and put it on, then lobbed the garbage bag through the air duct hole towards the 'T'. Julia clamped onto the duct-lip with both hands, then kicked the gurney away so that it rolled to a rest beneath the hole in the ceiling. She drew herself into the duct and grinned as she put the grate back in its place for the last time. 'Mr. Russell' straightened his hair and put on his long white lab coat, then resumed his 'vigil'.

Julia found the 'ESB' program with little trouble. Most of the multiple level security codes had been breached by the paranoid worker. She discovered she had a tracer near her heart and one in her brain. She downloaded the whole ESB program and the building blueprints onto a microdisc then set up a computer virus that would corrupt files as soon as a security code was entered. She chuckled, "That should keep them preoccupied for a while!" She smiled tightly and nodded at the next shift's change of guards outside Mr. Russell's door. "Head run... I'll be right back!" she lied smoothly.

She rounded the corner and headed for an empty lab to remove her microchips. She had to hurry, the night staff was due to arrive in twenty minutes. She flipped on the equipment monitor, then gritted her teeth against the pain as she inserted a long, sterilized, metal tube about 3mm. in diameter into her chest, using the monitor to guide her. She carefully removed the bloody chip with micro-grabbers and repeated the process through the pre-drilled hole she found in her skull. Finished, she went back to her 'job' and awaited her relief.

When Ms. Tempi arrived, Julia knocked the woman out before she could give her deception away. Julia placed the limp body into the computer chair and stuck the tracers gently down the woman's throat. She cheerfully left the compound wearing Mr. Russell's black short-brimmed hat and his long black leather coat.


To be continued....